The spell is broke; the charm is flown!
Thus is it with life's fitful fever:
We madly smile when we should groan:
Delirium is our best deceiver.
Each lucid interval of thought
Recalls the woes of Nature's charter;
And he that acts as wise men ought,
But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.
More verses by George Gordon Byron
- Elegiac Stanzas On The Death Of Sir Peter Parker, Bart.
- If That High World
- To Time
- Epistle To Augusta
- Endorsement To The Deed Of Separation In The April Of 1816