lord byron there is a pleasure in the pathless woods

This does not appear to be the signature of the writer, as the handwriting is consistent with numerous other passages throughout the autograph book and unless we are to assume that Bayfield (if that is indeed their name) wrote all of the passages we had previously attributed to Isabella, it doesn’t seem reasonable to posit this is our scribe here. It is unclear as to its purpose, as it seems somewhat detached from the stanza itself but is written just slightly under it. This first stanza that we have below also contains a brief note, slightly to the left. Perhaps this was the only canto Isabella had access to, or perhaps she had a particular affinity for Italy, or perhaps this canto in particular just happened to be her favourite. Isabella Woods appears to have had a particular affinity for this poem, as she preserved multiple stanzas in her autograph book.Īll four of the ones we are to look at in the coming weeks are from Canto IV, which follow Harold through Italy. Pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is a four part poem detailing the adventures of Harold throughout Europe. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight and if the freshening sea Made them a terror-’twas a Sublime- The image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made each zone Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

Storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving -boundless, endless, and Thou glorious mirror, where theĪlmighty’s form Glasses itself in tempests in all time, Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or Play- Time writes no wrinkle on thine azureīrow- Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now. They? Thy waters washed them power while they wereįree And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ Thee- Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are Thy shores are empires, changed in all save The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals. Playful spray And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth:-there let him lay. Wields For earth’s destruction thou dost allĭespise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send’st him, shivering in thy His steps are not upon thy paths,-thyįields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee the vile strength he There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar I love not Man the less, but Nature more. Plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain Man marks the earth with ruin-hisĬontrol Stops with the shore -upon the watery There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Lord byron there is a pleasure in the pathless woods