Don Juan: Canto the Twelfth

George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)



LIV

    But now I will begin my poem. 'Tis
       Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new,
   That from the first of Cantos up to this
       I've not begun what we have to go through.
   These first twelve books are merely flourishes,
       Preludios, trying just a string or two
   Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure;
   And when so, you shall have the overture.LV

   My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin
      About what's call'd success, or not succeeding:
  Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen;
      'Tis a "great moral lesson" they are reading.
  I thought, at setting off, about two dozen
      Cantos would do; but at Apollo's pleading
  If that my Pegasus should not be founder'd,
  I think to canter gently through a hundred.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

41 sec read
40

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXAXAXX BCBCBCXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 759
Words 133
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8

George Gordon Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet, peer and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence, and is considered one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest English poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular. He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa. During his stay in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died of disease leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted after the First and Second Siege of Missolonghi. His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as a foundational figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Byron's illegitimate children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh.  more…

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    Who wrote the poem "O Captain! My Captain!"?
    A Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    B Walt Whitman
    C Emily Dickinson
    D Ezra Pound