The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
English poetry
view of at Patras; and, from what I could make out of them, they
appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, and not very agreeable to a
spectator.
[For this profession of "natural piety," compare Rousseau's
_Confessions_, Partie II. livre xii. (_Oeuvres Complètes_, 1837, i.
341)--
"Je ne trouve pas de plus digne hommage à la Divinité que cette
admiration muette qu'excite la contemplation de ses oeuvres, et qui
ne s'exprime point par des actes développés. Je comprends comment
les habitants des villes, qui ne voient que des murs, des rues et
des crimes, ont peu de foi; mais je ne puis comprendre comment des
campagnards, et surtout des solitaires, peuvent n'en point avoir.
Comment leur âme ne s'élève-t-elle pas cent fois le jour avec
extase à l'Auteur des merveilles qui les frappent? ... Dans ma
chambre je prie plus rarement et plus sèchement; mais à l'aspect
d'un beau paysage je me sens ému sans pourvoir dire de quoi."
Compare, too, Coleridge's lines "To Nature"--
"So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields,
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only, God! and Thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice."
_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 190.]
20.
The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh Night!
Stanza xcii. line 1.
The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of
June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains
of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.
21.
And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought.
Stanza xcix. line 5.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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