Fare Thee Well
A public farewell with private ache, “Fare Thee Well” turns repetition into injured grace during Byron’s marital collapse.
Stanzas to Augusta (Selected Excerpts)
A lyric of loyal solace, “Stanzas to Augusta” turns exile into principle and finds one witness against the world.
Prometheus
Byron’s “Prometheus” is a secular hymn to endurance — rebellion transfigured into human strengthening and proud dignity.
The Prisoner of Chillon (Selected Excerpts)
A lyric tale of endurance, “The Prisoner of Chillon” finds inner liberty shadowed by grief — the world as a wider cell.
Manfred (Selected Excerpts)
Byron’s alpine closet drama pits solitary will against fate — responsibility without consolation, spectacle without cure.
So, We’ll Go No More a Roving
A tender farewell to excess, Byron’s lyric accepts time’s limits so that love may last.
Darkness
An apocalyptic lyric from 1816, “Darkness” imagines a sunless world — grandeur without comfort, entropy without appeal.
Don Juan (Canto I — Selected Excerpts)
In witty ottava rima, Byron’s “Don Juan” swaps epic heroics for satire — a comic anatomy of desire and hypocrisy.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto III — Selected Excerpts)
Exile becomes self-fashioning in Byron’s Canto III, where Spenserian stanzas join spectacle to inward pilgrimage.
When We Two Parted
A restrained lyric of secrecy and betrayal, “When We Two Parted” turns grief into judgment with tolling simplicity.
She Walks in Beauty
Byron’s classic lyric celebrates beauty as harmony — a poised balance of dark and bright, surface and soul.
Il Penseroso (Selected Excerpts)
Milton’s companion ode to contemplation praises learned solitude, ritual, and vision as a humane counterbalance to mirth.