Karen’s Reviews > The Complete Works Of Lord Byron: Dramatic Pieces And Poems > Status Update

The Island, Canto 3:
“She was a warrior’s daughter, and could bear
Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair.
Her lover lived,—nor foes nor fears could blight
That full-blown moment in its all delight:”
(Taken from the end of Stanza VIII)

The Island, Canto 2 (end): if you read it, look for the sexual innuendo all through the lines. Byron loved to indulge in the embarrassment of his readers.

The Island, Canto I.X:
“The breeze springs up; the lately flapping sail
Extends its arch before the growing gale;
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,
Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease.”

Paints the picture to perfection, doesn’t it.

Mazeppa (end):
Such a brutal tale told by Mazeppa to King Charles of Sweden.
Saved by the Cossacks’ daughter.
After being tied to a coarser spurred into the wilderness.
Man and beast as one.

Mazeppa, Stanza XVI: (Mazeppa was bound and strapped to the back of a wild courser)
“Onward we went—but slack and slow;
His savage force at length o’erspent,
The drooping courser, faint and low,
All feebly foaming went.
A sickly infant had had power
To guide him forward in that hour;
But useless all to me.”

Mazeppa, Stanza X (halfway):
“They play’d me then a bitter prank,
When they bound me to his foaming flank.
At length I play’d them one as frank—
For time at least sets all things even—
And if we do not watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiving,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.”

The Prisoner of Chillon, XII:
“I made a footing in the wall,
It was not therefrom to escape,
For I had buried one and all,
Had loved me in a human shape;
And the whole earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me”

The Siege of Corinth, XXXIII (end):
“So near they came, the nearest stretch’d
To grasp the spoil he almost reach’d
When old Minotti’s hand
Touch’d with the torch the train—
T’is fired!”

These are just the 1st lines of Stanza XXXIII, which concludes the poem. It is beautifully detailed to its end as the church is consumed in flame! Byron had a thing about flames.

The Siege of Corinth, XXVII:
“The sharp shot dash’d Alp to the ground;
Ere an eye could view the wound
That crash’d through the brain of the infidel,
Round he spun,and down he fell;
A flash like fire within his eyes,
Blazed, as he bent no more to rise”

The Siege of Corinth, XVIII:
“What we have seen, our sons shall see;
Remnants of things that have pass’d away,
Fragments of stone, rear’d by creatures of clay!”