Skip to content

Lord Byron on Memorial Day

1788–1824 England

← All quotes by Lord Byron

17 quotes

Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood.

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.

Heaven gives its favourites — early death.

Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!"

Perhaps the early grave
Which men weep over may be meant to save.

Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow.

And Thou Art Dead as Young and Fair (1812)

His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven,
His back to earth, his face to heaven.

The Giaour (1813)

"Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore.

Down to the dust! — and, as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.

Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!

Hand to hand, and foot to foot:
Nothing there, save death, was mute;
Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry
For quarter or for victory,
Mingle there with the volleying thunder.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown!

Battle's magnificently stern array!

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Hebrew Melodies (1815)

He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,—
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.

The Giaour (1813)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Lord Byron (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.