Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream
Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind
Walks o'er it."

General Characteristics.--The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge
shows the revolutionary reaction against classicism in literature and
tyranny in government; but their verse raises no cry of revolt against
the proprieties and moral restrictions of the time. Byron was so
saturated with the revolutionary spirit that he rebelled against these
also; and for this reason England would not allow him to be buried in
Westminster Abbey.

As Byron frequently wrote in the white heat of passionate revolt, his
verse shows the effects of lack of restraint. Unfortunately he did not
afterwards take the trouble to improve his subject matter, or the mold
in which it was cast. Swinburne says, "His verse stumbles and jingles,
stammers and halts, where is most need for a swift and even pace of
musical sound."

[Illustration: BYRON'S HOME AT PISA.]

The great power of Byron's poetry consists in its wealth of
expression, its vigor, its rush and volume of sound, its variety, and
its passion. Lines like the following show the vigorous flow of the
verse, the love for lonely scenery, and a wealth of figurative
expression:--

"Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains,
They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds
With a diadem of snow."[19]

Scattered through his works we find rare gems, such as the following--

"...when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell."[20]

We may also frequently note the working of an acute intellect, as, for
instance, in the lines in which he calls his own gloomy type of mind--

"...the telescope of truth,
Which strips the distance of its phantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!"[21]

The answers to two questions which are frequently asked, will throw
more light on Byron's characteristics:--

I. Why has his poetic fame in England decreased so much from the
estimate of his contemporaries, by whom he seemed worthy of a place
beside Goethe? The answer is to be sought in the fact that Byron
reflected so powerfully the mood of that special time. That
reactionary period in history has passed and with it much of Byron's
influence and fame. He was, unlike Shakespeare, specially fi