Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-05-11
LARGEST CITY CIRCULATION
Lord Byron.

LOku y
George Gordon Byron is name glori.
fed by genius, and destined to remain
40. while the universal heart Of mankind
responds to an electric power; revealing
in Characters of fire, original thought
above and beyond common conception,
as well as the every day feelings of hu,,
manity, which, without his immortal
harpings, would have remained forever
unspoken, ana not, rs now, warbled IN
.Orphean notes whose music cannot die.
Not only was he master of the secret
springs of feeling, and subtle expoun-
der Of every finer emotion Of the human
soul; but, looking abroad into nature
he grasred the Alpine panorama OF ma
jestic rocks, the level plains and VINE
clad mountains of sunny Spain' with
their relics of Moorish grandeur and
dominant superstition, and strobe over
the poIrotha of Waterloo, like the i'm
ypersonated spirit of war, drawn by his
own matchless hand;
80. on the mountain where the giant STAMPS
His blood red tresses deepening In the sun r.
Then 10 that abode ofgenii and ocean
conuuerors, he conducts MS DER the
Bridge of Signs, where
rTbe spouseless Adriatic mourns herlord;"
while moonlight and song, gondola and
winged lions tell US OF St Marks and
Venics--the city of the sea
With Lord Byron's skepticism and
moral delinquencies we intend not to
interfere. Whatever his faults were,
they have been published to the world,
with interest, we doubt not. His life,
his grand powers, are in the hands OF
One who Judges not as men judge The
immortal poet breathes no longer the
air of this, our world, insignificant, per-
haps, amidst the congregated spheres
which people immensely. Yet is he still
nnder the jurisdiction of the Greatest
Power, from whom he held the delegated
Gift of mind and i'll does it become our
feeble intellect to assign TO this owner
ofte talents the doom alone decreed by
the Omnipotent Lord and Judge,
~ Byron was certainly endowed with
noble impulses. Even his love of li:era-
lure was something inherent in his ma
tnre. Lett one scan his princely
brow. or note his Athenian elegance of
feature-the chivalric turn of his heroic
head-the perfect moulding of his Ply
dian hands-the naughty curve and fem
mime lines of his poetical and delicate
mouth-the firm, Napoleon-like cast OF
his indomitable and manly chin-let us
look into the depths of those eyes variant
"a nature itself, and we shall be forced
TO confess that this man was not fash
ioned after the model Of other men !
that, for good or i'll, he scared above his
cotemporaries, like The bird OF love,
with fixed eye on the sun, drinking In
splendor and undazzled by its eful gence.
There was, we are told, deep tinge of
superstition in his lordships mind.
Omens affected him strangely and he re-
spected presentiments. In these things
he did not differ from great minds in the
age in which he lived, and of antecedent
ages Scott, johnson, and others might
he cited to prove the fact In their case
we dare not call these things vulgar err
rors, though generally regarded as proofs
of silly credulity.:in the illiterate and un-
informed.
Lord Byron died young, but not before
he had sent his mystic organ notes far
and wide over an entranced world-not
till myriads of hearts had thrilled TO his
Olympian lays, and men mourned for
him as for the withdrawal Of an ethereal
and celestial light, called away from
. diurnal perception. would sleep
now r. said the dying bard, in language
so simple ard affecting that its whispers
seem 10 reach us from that land digniiied
by historic memories of .Thermopy lac,
Salamis aud Plalaa Yes the high
soulded Briton breatbed his lastin climes
consecrated by the memory of noble
deeds, refined by works of inimitable art,
and rendered classic by the blind old
bard, whose strains no epic poet has
ever yet arisen, nor probably ever will
arise, to emulate.
Who ever looked on the ocean and
failed to remember Lord Byron2 What
cultivated traveller, while surveying the
sublime and lovely in nature, has not
recalled the gloomy wanderings of
"Childe Harold" Even were we other
wise disposed, our be ter sympathies will
never permit us to forget this glorious
poet of art, feeling, sentiment and pic
turesque delineation:
hear voice, imprisoned and sublime,
Mourn, with drear pathos. Ger the wreck OF
time; -
Nhilo Striking, WIN lOfuly manu-, Tue iSEes
Immortal Byron breathes his song OF fire..
He weeps. imperial Rome thy fallen might
Tel thy proud glor Is FER, now set in night
Add, wailing through that wild and soaring
strain,
Red war he paints on Waterloo's grim plain;
Ca.talis's fount, muse-haunted now no more,
And the lost splendors Of fair Hella's shore.
Soft Andalusia' s vine-clad hills and fanes.
The castled Rhine. the Switzer bleek domains,
The Eastern garden, with it, deep-dyed rose,
Noonlighted Venice her sad prison woes
His mighty gives at once to view,
Clothed with its own dark grandeur, bold and
true.
In that deep love. the knowledge Of the heart,
How skilled. let his soul-stirriHg song impart
Nature hs loved. and drew from starry nig1;
Visions inspired of more than mortal light,
Tho giant mountain and the leafy grove,
Ihe emerald earth. the soft blue heaven above.
Old ocean s laundering roar and wayeless sleep,
Tho summer breeze, the north winds ruder
sweep,
Keen lightning's vivid fash and twilight dim,
His varied themes, are nobly sung by him.
New Orleans Times.
Gem Beauregard.