“How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country’s wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow’d mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall a while repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there.”
Where, in the whole range of English poetry, shall we find anything more perfect than these lines? What a quantity and variety of thought are here condensed into two verses, like a cluster of rock crystals, sparkling and distinct, yet receiving and reflecting lustre by the combination! Poetry and picture, pathos and fancy, grandeur and simplicity, are combined in verse, the melody of which has never been surpassed. Yet, out of the seventy-nine words in these lines, sixty-two are monosyllables.
Did Byron lack force or fire? His skilful use of monosyllables is often the very secret of his charm. It is true that he too frequently resorts to quaint, obsolete, and outlandish terms, thinking thereby to render his style more gorgeous or grand. But his chief strength lies in his despotic command over the simplest forms of speech. Listen to the words in which he describes the destruction of Sennacherib:
“For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill, And their hearts beat but once, and forever lay still.”
Here, out of forty-two words, all but four are monosyllables; and yet how exquisitely are all these monosyllables linked into the majestic and animated movement of the anapestic measure! Again, what can be more musical and more melancholy than the opening verse of the lines in which the same poet bids adieu to his native land?
“Adieu! adieu! my native shore Fades o’er the waters blue, The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native land, good night!
With thee, my bark, I’ll swiftly go Athwart the foaming brine; Nor care what land thou bear’st me to, So not again to mine.