Where I, like other dogs, have had my day,
Like other men, too, may have had my passion—
But that, like other things, has passed away,
And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on,
Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me
But dreams of what has been, no more to be.”
Shall we say that he lies, or that he only writes the first crazy thing that comes uppermost in his brain? I prefer the latter—or both; for they equally prove that he had no positive intent of good. His history, romance, character, all are truthfully told in that one stanza. ’Tis useless to dwell upon it.
That he had his inspirations of religious truth, which are common to all men, one may read abundantly in his works, especially in “Childe Harold.” Poor Byron seemed to grow sober and reflective, as the last Canto waned away. He could see the Almighty’s form glassed in the tempest, calm or convulsed; in its never-ending oscillation, the image of Eternity; in its incomprehensibility, “the throne of the Invisible.” The first time (how melancholy to him must have been the feeling!) that he ever longed to be associated with exalted womanly virtue, was, when in the CXVII. stanza—he breaks forth:
“Ye elements!—in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exalted—can ye not