us."

"Out of this somewhat forced simile," says the editor (John Wright) of
Lord Byron's _Poetical Works_, issued in 1832, "by a judicious
transposition of the comparison, and by the substitution of the more
definite _waves_ for _seas_, Lord Byron's clear and noble thought has
been produced." But the literary artifice, if such there be, is
subordinate to the emotion of the writer. It is in movement, progress,
flight, that the sufferer experiences a relief from the poignancy of his
anguish.]

[gi] _And the rent canvass tattering_----.--[C.]

[279] ["The metaphor is derived from a torrent-bed, which, when dried
up, serves for a sandy or shingly path."--Note by H. F. Tozer, _Childe
Harold_, 1885, p. 257. Or, perhaps, the imagery has been suggested by
the action of a flood, which ploughs a channel for itself through
fruitful soil, and, when the waters are spent, leaves behind it "a
sterile track," which does, indeed, permit the traveller to survey the
desolation, but serves no other purpose of use or beauty.]

[gj] {218} _I would essay of all I sang to sing_.--[MS.]

[280] [Compare Manfred, act ii. sc. 1, lines 51, 52--

"Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epoch."]

[gk] {219} _Still unimpaired though worn_----.--[MS. erased.]

[281] [It is the poet's fond belief that he can find the true reality in
"the things that are not seen."

"Out of these create he can
Forms more real than living man--
Nurslings of Immortality."

"Life is but thought," and by the power of the imagination he thinks to
"gain a being more intense," to add a cubit to his spiritual stature.
Byron professes the same faith in _The Dream_ (stanza i. lines 19-22),
which also belongs to the summer of 1816--

"The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh."

At this stage of his poetic growth, in part converted by Shelley, in
part by Wordsworth as preached by Shelley, Byron, so to speak, "got
religion," went over for a while to the Church of the mystics. There
was, too, a compulsion from within. Life had gone wrong with him, and,
driven from memory and reflection, he looks for redemption in the new
earth which Imagination and Nature held in store.]

[gl]
_A brighter being that we thus endow_
_With form our fancies_----.--[MS.]

[gm]