Question

Explanation for Lord Byron's poem?

Answer 1

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

Answer 2

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: From a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers – they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror – ‘twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane – as I do here.

Answer 3

My task is done, my song hath cease, my theme
Has died into an echo; it is fit
The spell should break of this protracted dream.
The torch shall be extinguished with hath lit
My midnight lamp – and what is writ, is writ;
Would it were worthier! but I am not now
That which I have been – and my visions flit
Less palpably before me – and the glow
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, fain, and low.

Answer 4

Farewell! a word that must e, and hath been –
A sound which makes us linger; – yet – farewell!
Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
40 Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
A single recollection, not in vain
He wore his sandal shoon and scallop shell;
Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain,
45 If such there were – with you, the moral of his strain.