Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MORAT, by GEORGE GORDON BYRON


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MORAT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Above me are the alps
Last Line: Making kings' rights divine, by some draconic clause.
Alternate Author Name(s): Byron, Lord; Byron, 6th Baron
Subject(s): Alps; Mountains; Murten, Switzerland; Hills; Downs (great Britain); Morat, Switzerland


Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche, - the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appalls,
Gathers around these summits, as to show
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below.
But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan,
There is a spot should not be passed in vain, -
Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,
Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain;
Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host,
A bony heap, through ages to remain,
Themselves their monument; - the Stygian coast
Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost.
While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage vies,
Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand;
They were true glory's stainless victories,
Won by the unambitious heart and hand
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band,
All unbought champions in no princely cause
Of vice-entailed corruption; they no land
Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws
Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.




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