I Would I Were a Careless Child Analysis

I would I were a careless child,

Still dwelling in my highland cave,

Or roaming through the dusky wild,

Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;

The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride

Accords not with the freeborn soul,

Which loves the mountain's craggy side,

And seeks the rocks where billows roll.



Fortune! take back these cultured lands,

Take back this name of splendid sound!

I hate the touch of servile hands,

I hate the slaves that cringe around.

Place me among the rocks I love,

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;

I ask but this -- again to rove

Through scenes my youth hath known before.



Few are my years, and yet I feel

The world was ne'er designed for me:

Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal

The hour when man must cease to be?

Once I beheld a splendid dream,

A visionary scene of bliss:

Truth! -- wherefore did thy hated beam

Awake me to a world like this?



I loved -- but those I loved are gone;

Had friends -- my early friends are fled:

How cheerless feels the heart alone

When all its former hopes are dead!

Though gay companions o'er the bowl

Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,

The heart -- the heart -- is lonely still.



How dull! to hear the voice of those

Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power,

Have made, though neither friends nor foes,

Associates of the festive hour.

Give me again a faithful few,

In years and feelings still the same,

And I will fly the midnight crew,

Where boist'rous joy is but a name.



And woman, lovely woman! thou,

My hope, my comforter, my all!

How cold must be my bosom now,

When e'en thy smiles begin to pall!

Without a sigh I would resign

This busy scene of splendid woe,

To make that calm contentment mine,

Which virtue knows, or seems to know.



Fain would I fly the haunts of men--

I seek to shun, not hate mankind;

My breast requires the sullen glen,

Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.

Oh! that to me the wings were given

Which bear the turtle to her nest!

Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,

To flee away and be at rest.

.: lord byron (the big six) :.

I think that the these people where a bunch of spoiled rich kids with too much spare time. What they produce was hardly productive given the amount of time these whinning tea drinking skinnys had whilst relaxing in some posh alfresco dinner setting or strolling through the crisp forestry at a country club, inspiration comes easy when you are have no work ethic and no touch with reality . They make me sick its a good thing they all died in the 1800's or we would be still stuck with these f*#$%*! romantics.

| Posted on 2005-05-18 | by Approved Guest