Lord Byron

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography)


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Good night, and joy be with you all."]

      My mother is a high-born dame, And much misliketh me; She saith my riot bringeth shame On all my ancestry. I had a sister once I ween, Whose tears perhaps will flow; But her fair face I have not seen For three long years and moe.

      Methinks it would my bosom glad, To change my proud estate, And be again a laughing lad With one beloved playmate. Since youth I scarce have pass'd an hour Without disgust or pain, Except sometimes in Lady's bower, Or when the bowl I drain.

      Byron was recalling an incident which had befallen him some time previously (see letter to Moore, January 19, 1815): "When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him." See, too, for another thrust at Argus, Don Juan, Canto III. stanza xxiii. But he should have remembered that this particular Argus "was half a wolf by the she side." His portrait is preserved at Newstead (see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 280, Edition de Luxe).

      For the expression of a different sentiment, compare The Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog (first published in Hobhouse's Imit. and Transl., 1809), and the prefatory inscription on Boatswain's grave in the gardens of Newstead, dated November 16, 1808 (Life, p. 73).]