MANFRED

BY

LORD BYRON

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

GEORGE GORDON, sixth Lord Byron, was the son of a profligate guardsman and an eccentric Scottish heiress. He was born in London on January 22, 1788, educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and came into prominence with the publication of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" (1809), a satire provoked by an adverse criticism of his youthful "Hours of Idleness" in the "Edinburgh Review." After two years of travel on the Continent, he published the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," and in 1815 married Miss Millbanke, a prospective heiress. She left him a year later, and in the scandal which accompanied the separation Byron became very unpopular. He left England never to return, and spent most of his remaining years in Italy.

It is unnecessary to follow in detail the history of his life abroad. In spite of great irregularities in conduct, Byron continued to write copiously, seldom with care or attention to finish, but often with brilliance. His Oriental tales, which made him the hero of the sentimental readers of the day, "The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," had been written in the years preceding his marriage; "Manfred," his first and in many respects his most interesting drama, appeared in 1817; "Don Juan" came out at intervals from 1819 to 1824; and during the same period he produced with extraordinary rapidity a group of plays of which the so-called mystery, "Cain," is the most important. "The Vision of Judgment," a merciless satire on Southey's apotheosis of George III, followed in 1822.

Byron had been interested in revolutionary politics in Italy, and when the Greeks revolted against the Turks in 1823 he joined them as a volunteer; but before he saw fighting he died of fever at Missolonghi, April 19, 1824. His death at least was worthy of the noblest passion of his life, the passion for liberty.

For dramatic writing Byron was not favorably endowed. His egotism was too persistent to enable him to enter vitally and sympathetically into a variety of characters, and the hero of his plays, as of his poems, is usually himself more or less disguised. Yet some of his most eloquent lines are to be found in his dramas, and "Manfred" is an impressive and characteristic product of one of the most brilliantly gifted of English poets.

MANFRED

A DRAMATIC POEM

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

The scene of the Drama is amongst the Higher Alps-partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the Mountains.

ACT I

SCENE I.-MANFRED alone.-Scene, a Gothic Gallery.
Time, Midnight.

Manfred

T

|HE lamp must be replenish'd, but even then
It will not burn so long as I must watch.
My slumbers-if I slumber—are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
But grief should be the instructor of the wise;
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
Philosophy and science, and the springs
Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world,

I have essay'd, and in my mind there is
A power to make these subject to itself—
But they avail not: I have done men good,
And I have met with good even among men-
But this avail'd not: I have had my foes,
And none have baffled, many fallen before me-
But this avail'd not:-Good, or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,
And feel the curse to have no natural fear,

Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes,
Or lurking love of something on the earth.

Now to my task.—

Mysterious Agency!

Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe,

Whom I have sought in darkness and in light!

Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell

In subtler essence! ye, to whom the tops
Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,

And earth's and ocean's caves familiar things-
I call upon ye by the written charm

Which gives me power upon you-Rise! appear!

[A pause.

They come not yet.-Now by the voice of him
Who is the first among you; by this sign,
Which makes you tremble; by the claims of him
Who is undying,-Rise! appear!—Appear!

If it be so.-Spirits of earth and air,
Ye shall not thus elude me: by a power,
Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell,
Which had its birthplace in a star condemn'd,
The burning wreck of a demolish'd world,

[A pause.

A wandering hell in the eternal space;
By the strong curse which is upon my soul,
The thought which is within me and around me,

I do compel ye to my will. Appear!

[A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing.

FIRST SPIRIT

Mortal! to thy bidding bow'd,
From my mansion in the cloud,
Which the breath of twilight builds,
And the summer's sunset gilds
With the azure and vermilion
Which is mix'd for my pavilion;
Though thy quest may be forbidden,
On a star-beam I have ridden,
To thine adjuration bow'd;
Mortal-be thy wish avow'd!

Voice of the SECOND SPIRIT

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains; They crown'd him long ago

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.

Around his waist are forests braced,
The Avalanche in his hand;
But ere it fall, that thundering ball
Must pause for my command.
The Glacier's cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day;
But I am he who bids it pass,
Or with its ice delay.

I am the spirit of the place,

Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his cavern'd baseAnd what with me wouldst Thou?

Voice of the THIRD SPIRIT In the blue depth of the waters, Where the wave hath no strife, Where the wind is a stranger, And the sea-snake hath life, Where the Mermaid is decking Her green hair with shells; Like the storm on the surface