“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! The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some Volcanic Isle; No torch is kindled in it’s blaze, a funeral pile.”
“On This Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year” by Lord Byron
Missogolonghi, Greece
January 22, 1824
To-day is my birthday- that is to say- at near Midnight tonight (i.e an hour from now!) I turn thirty and six! How old!!! I supped with the calvary men at dinner, who toasted to my health and a long, prosperous life. Drank and ate much, but did not eat two apples placed by way of dessert.
Conversed with Prince Mavrokordáros for a while who also wished me great felicitations on my thirty and sixth year. We discussed war things, news of war, plots, and so such. He and his men have been planning an attack on the coast. I put great faith in his anarchist cause. The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the people will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.
I retire tonight with a heavy heart. My life has been a long one, but I know not for what. What purpose could here possibly be for such a dreadful wretch as I to exist? I regret not a second, and feel only slightly remorseful on what could have been. Still, I feel with acute longing what it all has come to. I stand here, an accomplished poet, revolutionary, playwright, what has it all been for? The only things these years have brought me are thirty and six years and a want of death. My dearest friends, dead, drowned, and mad. How did they live their lives? I am no longer young, my flowering days are done. Love has left me, life has lived me.
Never has there been a soul such as I, so melconcalic, so destructive, so restless! Never has there been such a life as mine, such a poet as I am! I keep finding myself drawn back to a question asked to me by Mrs. Shelley so many years ago “What is it that makes a human life worth living?” Could that ever be measured? If so, by what?
Oh! My dear Loukas is here with my brandy. I’ll finish this later.
Loukas gave me the brandy I requested and my English correspondence. I invited him to sit with me by the fireside, which he happily agreed to do, and talked with me for an hour or so.
The firelight cast attractive brown shadows across his golden skin. His eyes, which are the fine green color of the sea and shaped like pearls, have an entrancing power over me, but more exceptionally so tonight (for I am very fond of handsome eyes). I long to put my head across that broad bosom of his and kiss those gentle lips. I have so seldom seen such full and delicate lips in men, but Loukas possesses all the most handsome features of women and men.
He did not speak at first, but inquired as to my puzzled expression. I asked him how he would describe my person. Loukas said he thought me an accomplished and worldly kind of man who was destined to glorious things. I swear, there was a long time when he was glancing at me tenderly and affectionately with those handsome eyes. Even if only for a moment! When I asked if that was all, he said that he’s seldom spoken to me and all he knew of my character was from the hearsay of the household. I told him Mrs. Shelley’s age old question. I asked him how he would answer, he once more fell silent.
After some time of looking into the fire he said his mother told him it was only God who knew what was planned for each of us in this mortal world. I asked if he put his faith in God, and he said yes, but with some unsurity, knowing only what had been taught to put in faith in. He concluded by saying that he was undecided. He does not know much about God, or anything of his existence, but finds that perhaps human life could only be measured by the good of one’s deeds or some nonsensical pretend thing like that.
I put no faith in a God, and know little if there should be the existence of fate on earth. As of goodness, I say it is not a true virtue. If it is, I am the most corrupt sinner to have ever breathed earthly air and I envy those with the innocence of youth who know not what a life lived is. Which leaves only myself in the matter of life. I suppose a human life is worth not a fig in the end of the world.
The great worth of my life is nothing, for life is meaningless. What other reason do I justify my existence? I live only to be a vessel for poetry’s great music. We’re born and die in what equates to a mere blink and only a few terrible men are remembered in the vast sea of history. There is only one thing I am sure of: we all die, we either meet that fate swiftly by our own hand, or slowly by another force’s will.
“On This Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year” by Lord Byron
Missogolonghi, Greece
January 22, 1824
To-day is my birthday- that is to say- at near Midnight tonight (i.e an hour from now!) I turn thirty and six! How old!!! I supped with the calvary men at dinner, who toasted to my health and a long, prosperous life. Drank and ate much, but did not eat two apples placed by way of dessert.
Conversed with Prince Mavrokordáros for a while who also wished me great felicitations on my thirty and sixth year. We discussed war things, news of war, plots, and so such. He and his men have been planning an attack on the coast. I put great faith in his anarchist cause. The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the people will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.
I retire tonight with a heavy heart. My life has been a long one, but I know not for what. What purpose could here possibly be for such a dreadful wretch as I to exist? I regret not a second, and feel only slightly remorseful on what could have been. Still, I feel with acute longing what it all has come to. I stand here, an accomplished poet, revolutionary, playwright, what has it all been for? The only things these years have brought me are thirty and six years and a want of death. My dearest friends, dead, drowned, and mad. How did they live their lives? I am no longer young, my flowering days are done. Love has left me, life has lived me.
Never has there been a soul such as I, so melconcalic, so destructive, so restless! Never has there been such a life as mine, such a poet as I am! I keep finding myself drawn back to a question asked to me by Mrs. Shelley so many years ago “What is it that makes a human life worth living?” Could that ever be measured? If so, by what?
Oh! My dear Loukas is here with my brandy. I’ll finish this later.
Loukas gave me the brandy I requested and my English correspondence. I invited him to sit with me by the fireside, which he happily agreed to do, and talked with me for an hour or so.
The firelight cast attractive brown shadows across his golden skin. His eyes, which are the fine green color of the sea and shaped like pearls, have an entrancing power over me, but more exceptionally so tonight (for I am very fond of handsome eyes). I long to put my head across that broad bosom of his and kiss those gentle lips. I have so seldom seen such full and delicate lips in men, but Loukas possesses all the most handsome features of women and men.
He did not speak at first, but inquired as to my puzzled expression. I asked him how he would describe my person. Loukas said he thought me an accomplished and worldly kind of man who was destined to glorious things. I swear, there was a long time when he was glancing at me tenderly and affectionately with those handsome eyes. Even if only for a moment! When I asked if that was all, he said that he’s seldom spoken to me and all he knew of my character was from the hearsay of the household. I told him Mrs. Shelley’s age old question. I asked him how he would answer, he once more fell silent.
After some time of looking into the fire he said his mother told him it was only God who knew what was planned for each of us in this mortal world. I asked if he put his faith in God, and he said yes, but with some unsurity, knowing only what had been taught to put in faith in. He concluded by saying that he was undecided. He does not know much about God, or anything of his existence, but finds that perhaps human life could only be measured by the good of one’s deeds or some nonsensical pretend thing like that.
I put no faith in a God, and know little if there should be the existence of fate on earth. As of goodness, I say it is not a true virtue. If it is, I am the most corrupt sinner to have ever breathed earthly air and I envy those with the innocence of youth who know not what a life lived is. Which leaves only myself in the matter of life. I suppose a human life is worth not a fig in the end of the world.
The great worth of my life is nothing, for life is meaningless. What other reason do I justify my existence? I live only to be a vessel for poetry’s great music. We’re born and die in what equates to a mere blink and only a few terrible men are remembered in the vast sea of history. There is only one thing I am sure of: we all die, we either meet that fate swiftly by our own hand, or slowly by another force’s will.
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