LORD BYRON

Estatua de Lord Byron en los jardines de Villa Borghese en Roma

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE

"Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
and coming events cast their shadows before"

CAMPBELL

DEDICATION

LADY! if for the cold cloudy clime,
where I was born, but where I would not die,
of the great Poet-Sire of Italy
I dare to build the imitative rhyme,
Hars Runic copy of the South's sublime,
THOU art the cause; and howsoever I
fall short of his inmortal harmony,
thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth,
spakest; and for thee to speak and be obey'd
are one; but only in the sunny South
such sounds are uttered, and such charms display'd,
so weet a language from so fair a mouth -
ah! to what effort would it not persuade?

Ravenna, June 21, 1819