And this rain pours, so hard and strong
Upon the Grecian soil;
This life so short, and yet so long,

No more beset by toil!
His toil now seeps into the flood,
The Dionysian colour of blood

From which they all recoiled -
Those gentle people far away
Yet to hear of this tragic day.


They know not where he liest now,
Nor yet can they conceive,

That he would take his final bow
Without a last reprieve;
A legend that had just begun

In muster of the Ottoman
Suddenly bereaved;
From him the sweetest words did flow

And yet so dangerous to know.

Nor loved by world, nor it by he,

According to his rhyme,
Yet who didst not his revelry
Indulge from time to time;

The ladies' fans he dared to share,
The maddened page-boys in his lair,
None could he decline;

Such endowment had this man,
Inert upon the Greek divan.


Most poignant were his words in life,
As though a lute he played,
Transforming all his mortal strife

Into the fairest maid;
As when the moon a cloud doth veil
It's amber rays will still prevail,

And grief is thus unmade;
We bask in the resplendent glow
Of enchanting tales and pleasing woe.


The fruits revealed thus by his pen,
His literary feats,

Endeared him to such noble men
As Shelley and John Keats.
And there upon Geneva's shores

Unbound by fickle social laws,
Abandonment replete:
So prolific was his pen the while

He spent his days in self-exile.

I know not if he cared to see

How much he did endear;
For he offered not a patient knee,
Nor countrymen his ear;

And yet it took me by surprise
To witness such expressive eyes
Now closed upon the bier:

Awaking once to sudden fame,
Never now to wake again.


What use are tears upon a tomb
That is as yet unmade?
In time perhaps, he may find room

In England's colonnades.
His life was lived as a pariah,
All his bridges set on fire -

'Twas the game he played;
And yet how oft have said the wise
That from their death do martyrs rise?


This rain still pours into the earth,
Like memories of old,

Of pantheons of Gods, and mirth -
Such stories that were told;
From simple tales great myths have grown

And fertile seeds of love are sown,
Though cowardly or bold;
And thus the blood of Byron surged
Upon this Grecian soil is purged.