"There were no stars, no earth, no time, No check, no change, no good, no crime-- But silence, and a stirless breath Which neither was of life nor death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!" [Illustration: CASTLE OF CHILLON.] Dramas.--Byron wrote a number of dramas, the best of which are _Manfred_ (1817) and _Cain_ (1821). His spirit of defiance and his insatiable thirst for power are the subjects of these dramas. Manfred is a man of guilt who is at war with humanity, and who seeks refuge on the mountain tops and by the wild cataract. He is fearless and untamed in all his misery, and even in the hour of death does not quail before the spirits of darkness, but defies them with the cry:-- "Back to thy hell! Thou hast no power upon me, _that_ I feel! Thou never shall possess me, _that_ I know; What I have done is done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine; * * * * * Back, ye baffled fiends! The hand of death is on me--but not yours!" Cain, while suffering remorse for the slaying of Abel, is borne by Lucifer through the boundless fields of the universe. Cain yet dares to question the wisdom of the Almighty in bringing evil, sin, and remorse into the world. A critic has remarked that "Milton wrote his great poem to justify the ways of God to man; Byron's object seems to be to justify the ways of man to God." The very soul of stormy revolt breathes through both _Manfred_ and _Cain_, but _Cain_ has more interest as a pure drama. It contains some sweet passages and presents one lovely woman,--Adah. But Byron could not interpret character wholly at variance with his own. He possessed but little constructive skill, and he never overcame the difficulties of blank verse. A drama that does not show wide sympathy with varied types of humanity and the constructive capacity to present the complexities of life is lacking in essential elements of greatness. Childe Harold, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan.--His best works are the later poems, which require only a slight framework or plot, such as _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Vision of Judgement,_ and _Don Juan_. The third and fourth cantos of _Childe Harold_, published in 1816 and 1818, respectively, are far superior to the first two. These later cantos continue the travels of Harold, and contain some of Byron's most splendid descriptions of nature, cities, and works of art. Rome, Venice, the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea inspired the finest lines. He wrote of Venice as she-- "...Sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! * * * * * She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance." He calls Rome--