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.
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.
The Sound of the Trees
In “The Sound of the Trees,” Frost turns ambient rustle into the cadence of decision, where thought itself becomes the poem’s action.
After Apple-Picking
Between labor and dream, “After Apple-Picking” drifts toward sleep, fusing sensuous detail with questions of desire and mortality.
Fire and Ice
Frost’s “Fire and Ice” weighs desire and hate as forces of destruction, distilling apocalypse into nine lines of icy wit.