Lord Byron Stares at Death — theparisreview.org

Byron, meditating on mortality, no doubt. ’Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it has ceased to move: Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love! My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of Love are gone; The worm—the canker, and the grief Are mine alone! So begins one of Byron’s last poems. Is it an ode to the Greek youth he loved? A general meditation on mortality? Choose your theory. The date, at least, we can estimate with a fair degree of accuracy. In the 1825 Narrative of Lord Byron’s Last Journey to Greece, his friend, Count Gamba, related of the occasion:

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