The writer of the above was barely twenty-four years of age, he bore one of the oldest names in the British Isles, he was a peer of England and was to become the leading poet of his time!
The first canto of Childe Harold was to reveal him in the latter capacity, and he sold his poem for two hundred pounds sterling.
His mother died suddenly in Scotland two months after his return, in 1811.
"One day," said Lord Byron, "I heard she was ill; the next, I learnt that she was dead!"
Nor was this all. Almost at the same time his two best friends, Wingfield and Matthews, both died.
Byron wrote to Mr. Davies:—
"Some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. What can I say, or think, or do? Come to me. I am almost desolate—left almost alone in the world."
We find traces of these sorrows at the close of the second canto of Childe Harold:—
"All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast;
The parent, friend, and now the more than friend;
Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast,
And grief with grief continuing still to blend,
Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now.
Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,
O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed:
Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow,
Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd,
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd."