To Inez by Lord Byron

Probably minutes after doing something of vague illegality

Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang even thou must fail to soothe?

It is not love, it is not hate,
Nor low Ambition's honours lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,
That will not look beyond the tomb,
But cannot hope for rest before.

What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake:
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,
Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

What is that worst? Nay, do not ask -
In pity from the search forbear:
Smile on--nor venture to unmask
Man's heart, and view the hell that's there.

Byron appears to be getting a disproportionate share of my attention on this blog but I don't much mind. Not when it allows me to post a surfeit of pieces like this, at least. I am fast starting to believe that he may be the best English poet, and certainly of the past 200 years, much though I love Poe and Shelley and Keats and all the rest. Before that, though, I think the contenders are Shakespeare and Milton, who are both nonpareils in their own unique ways. It's impossible and fruitless to attempt to compare them. But Byron was one of those very rare figures, like Oscar Wilde, who seemed so ahead of their time, and our time for that matter. There was such an understanding of what it was to be human - the absurdity, the folly, the rare moments of splendour that sanctify the endeavour. If anything, we have made a regression from the 1800s in terms of exploration of the human condition. Gone are the days of poems like this - nowadays it is enough to write about eating at Starbucks, or doing a shit, or both simultaneously, I can't stop you. All this wrought under the anaemic guise of what they call 'free verse', a rather deceptive moniker. It is not free poetry at all - it is the most stilted, constipated type of poetry imaginable. It is bound by its own indolence, poetry that has lost the will to live, and this is not freedom. And personally I think it is generous to confer the name 'poetry' on what is a collection of prose fragments. To me, metre is the heart of poetry. It is the sway and cadence of each line that generates the majesty required for the title 'poetry'. Poe wrote in The Poetic Principle that 'rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected- is so vitally important an adjunct that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality.' So there.

I'm not quite sure why, but the last line of this poem rather disarmed me. I just somehow was not expecting that choice of words, but this is conducive rather than deleterious to the general effect. Additionally, the rhythm is so perfect. It is a belief I expect I shall forever stand by that poetry in metre has far more power to establish some imperium over the soul, and the final line of this poem exploits metre with ruinous impact (in a good way of course). It reminds me of the final line of Poe's Alone, 'Of a demon in my view,' which is prefaced by such momentum that the the curtness of the ending is all the more potent.

This poem is so clearly Romantic, its subject being that kind of solitary woe you might associate with the Byronic hero. People would often say of Byron that he looked at times rapt in another dimension, as if considering some exclusive misery. Indeed, he probably was, but he did try to affect dissatisfaction too, to bolster his appearance as the Romantic ideal - pale, thin, mysterious and haunted.

Overall, then, and indeed by any specifics, a cracking poem, Gromit. I can't speak for anyone else but I have a huge sympathy with what Byron writes here, and that's probably why I praise the piece so much. I should mention that it's part of Canto I of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which is well worth a read. Until our next convocation.