This lovely scene at George Gordon Byron's home, Newstead Abbey, surely deserves to be accompanied by some quotes from the Romantic poet himself:
'There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears;
The earth is but the music of the spheres.'
'Are not the mountains, waves and skies a part of me and my soul, as I of them?'
'There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.'
'When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.'
He also said: 'The English winter - ending in July to recommence in August'.
It certainly feels like that this year!
It is a beautiful spot and no doubt influenced his writing. It looks like a Turner painting.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful picture, and words.
ReplyDeleteThe picture suits the poetry indeed.
ReplyDeleteLet's see if I have this right. Lord Byron was one of the greatest -- and most prolific -- lovers of his day, and maybe of any day, and yet he wrote sensitive poetry like this. Hmmmm, I think the times have changed . . .
ReplyDelete