“Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee, The cold chain of silence had hung o’er thee long, When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee, And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song.” His best long poem is +Lalla Rookh+. --His prose works are little read nowadays. The chief among them are his +Life of Sheridan+, and his +Life of Lord Byron+. --He died at Sloperton, in Wiltshire, in 1852, two years after the death of Wordsworth. 16. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (+1788-1824+), a great English poet, was born in London in the year 1788. He was the only child of a reckless and unprincipled father and a passionate mother. He was educated at Harrow School, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first volume-- +Hours of Idleness+-- was published in 1807, before he was nineteen. A critique of this juvenile work which appeared in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ stung him to passion; and he produced a very vigorous poetical reply in +English Bards and Scotch Reviewers+. After the publication of this book, Byron travelled in Germany, Spain, Greece, and Turkey for two years; and the first two cantos of the poem entitled +Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage+ were the outcome of these travels. This poem at once placed him at the head of English poets; “he woke one morning,” he said, “and found himself famous.” He was married in the year 1815, but left his wife in the following year; left his native country also, never to return. First of all he settled at Geneva, where he made the acquaintance of the poet Shelley, and where he wrote, among other poems, the third canto of +Childe Harold+ and the +Prisoner of Chillon+. In 1817 he removed to Venice, where he composed the fourth canto of +Childe Harold+ and the +Lament of Tasso+; his next resting-place was Ravenna, where he wrote several plays. Pisa saw him next; and at this place he spent a great deal of his time in close intimacy with Shelley. In 1821 the Greek nation rose in revolt against the cruelties and oppression of the Turkish rule; and Byron’s sympathies were strongly enlisted on the side of the Greeks. He helped the struggling little country with contributions of money; and, in 1823, sailed from Geneva to take a personal share in the war of liberation. He died, however, of fever, at Missolonghi, on the 19th of April 1824, at the age of thirty-six. 17. His best-known work is +Childe Harold+, which is written in the Spenserian stanza. His plays, the best of which are +Manfred+ and +Sardanapālus+, are written in blank verse. --His style is remarkable for its strength and elasticity, for its immensely powerful sweep, tireless energy, and brilliant illustrations.