Selected Poems Author:Lord Byron In the early eighteenth century, the poets Byron, Shelley, and Keats - heirs to the Romantic legacy of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Burns, and Blake - formed a trio of poetic revolution. The three were unwavering in their hatred of authoritarianism, their disdain for conventional morality, and their outspoken support of radical causes. — George Gordon,... more » Lord Byron, is the best known throughout the world of this second generation of English Romantic poets - perhaps because he matches the strength of his radical political convictions with a vigorous rhythm and powerful narrative sweep that lose little when translated. Byron's verse - from the brooding "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," the first two cantos of which made him famous overnight, to the witty boisterousness of the autobiographical masterpiece "Don Juan" - rings out with a passion as potent as it is rare.
Included here are "Childe Harold," and "Don Juan," along with others of his best works, including the early satire "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," which he wrote to take revenge on an Edinburgh Review critic; teh well-known "She Walks in Beauty," penned after he sighted one Lady Wilmot Horton wearing a spangle-covered mourning dress; and "The Bride of Abydos," which recounts the grim tale of a woman faced with an arranged marriage.
From his most cynical and contemptuous verse to his most solemn, Byron was an eternal crusader for political and moral liberty, and his poetry resonates with as much sincerity as his fatal decision to travel to the Mediterranean to fight for the liberty of Greece.« less