earthquake's birth"

When George III. died, Southey wrote a poem filled with absurd
flattery of that monarch. Byron had such intense hatred for the
hypocrisy of society that he wrote his _Vision of Judgment_ (1822) to
parody Southey's poem and to make the author the object of satire.
Pungent wit, vituperation, and irony were here handled by Byron in a
brilliant manner, which had not been equaled since the days of Dryden
and Pope. The parodies of most poems are quickly forgotten, but we
have here the strange case of Byron's parody keeping alive Southey's
original.

_Don Juan_ (1819-1824), a long poem in sixteen cantos, is Byron's
greatest work. It is partly autobiographic. The sinister, gloomy Don
Juan is an ideal picture of the author, who was sore and bitter over
his thwarted hopes of liberty and happiness. Therefore, instead of
strengthening humanity with hope for the future, this poem tears hope
from the horizon, and suggests the possible anarchy and destruction
toward which the world's hypocrisy, cant, tyranny, and universal
stupidity are tending.

The poem is unfinished. Byron followed Don Juan through all the phases
of life known to himself. The hero has exciting adventures and
passionate loves, he is favored at courts, he is driven to the lowest
depths of society, he experiences a godlike happiness and a demoniacal
despair.

_Don Juan_ is a scathing satire upon society. All its fondest
idols,--love, faith, and hope,--are dragged in the mire. There is
something almost grand in the way that this Titanic scoffer draws
pictures of love only to mock at them, sings patriotic songs only to
add--

"Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung
The modern Greek in tolerable verse,"

and mentions Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare only to show how
accidental and worthless is fame.

Amid the splendid confusion of pathos, irony, passion, mockery, keen
wit, and brilliant epigram, which display Byron's versatile and
spontaneous genius at its height, there are some beautiful and
powerful passages. There is an ideal picture of the love of Don Juan
and Haidee:--

"Each was the other's mirror, and but read
Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem."

"...they could not be
Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring,
Before one charm or hope had taken wing."

As she lightly slept--

"...her face so fair
Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air;