To Walk in Beauty

by

Lev Raphael and Lauren Roberts

Lev Raphael:

I fell in love with Byron in college in a Romantic Poetry class, but not with the dark brooding Byron of “Manfred.” It was the snarky Byon I loved, the Byron trashing writers and critics in “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” The Byron who could pen this mocking couplet in Don Juan:

What men call gallantry, and the Gods adultery
Is much more common where the climate’s sultry

Or better still praise poets from the Augustan Age and dish Romantics:

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is craz’d beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy:

He seemed so modern to me, so cynical and cool, so approachable.

My girlfriend at the time loved Shelley and one birthday I gave her a huge new biography of him.  In it, she discovered a line Shelly uttered in a row boat to a woman he wanted to bed: “Shall we discover the mystery?” At least that’s how I remember her quoting it, over and over, with a sly, appreciative smile.

My very next birthday, she gave me a well-worn 1842 Tauchnitz set of Byron’s Complete Works, which not only includes the poetry, but even some of his speeches in Parliament. That volume is the one that opens least easily of the five, but I rarely opened them. Content to read his work in contemporary paperbacks, I set them on my desk between bookends and they became an inspiration and a link to the past. I loved the idea not just of Byron’s fame, but of people carrying these volumes in their capacious pockets or reticules as they traveled in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. It wasn’t impossible that someone who had met Byron or seen him passing had been the original owner.

I read as much of Byron and about Byron as I could find. His letters, a biography by Leslie Marchand, all the poetry. My interest in Byron hasn’t faded, and as later biographies have crossed my path, I’ve fallen on them eagerly: Louis Crompton’s Byron and Greek Love, Betinna Eisler’s Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame.

He still strikes me as amazingly modern, one of the world’s first literary celebrities, someone who knew all-too-well how to stoke “the star-making machinery,” as Joni Mitchell sang. And a man who knew that fame was fleeting, the public’s acclaim fickle. Don Juan opens with these lines as true today as they were two hundred and fifty years ago:

I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;

Only now the “heroes” emerge weekly or even daily.

* * *

Lauren Roberts:

Sometimes I regret that I came so late to Byron’s poetic bed, and even more that it began with his books rather than his words. For Byron is words—words of love, of lust, of cynicism, of life itself. Still, better late than never.

Our relationship began in September 1991. I was unemployed and volunteering some time at the popular Planned Parenthood annual book sale. Long days of sorting and pricing books left me covered with dust and filth and with an aching back. But it had its upside too. We got to see the books as they came in, and to note those of any particular interest. We couldn’t buy them early, but we knew they were there.

Byron must have come in while I wasn’t there because it wasn’t until opening night that I first spied the six-volume set of golden-brown books grouped together in a box on the “specials” table. Published in 1821, they are on the small side: 6.5" x 4". But the gilt is only slightly dulled and the decoration on the fore edges (which is similar to the end papers) is clean and bright. I took note of them, but as they were priced at $70 I reluctantly passed. But every day I was there I checked the table. And every day they were there. I would stroke them and secretly vow that I would come back for them.

The last day of the sale is always half-price day. I took advantage of my position to schedule myself for a shift so I could be in the room before it opened. Sure enough, the books were still there. My heart was beating hard, and my breath was coming in gasps as I realized they were to be mine. It was hard to concentrate, but I forced myself to calm down as I worked with other volunteers straightening the tables as the crowd grew outside the expansive windows. Five minutes to go. Keep working. Three minutes. Two minutes. Okay, go over to the table next to the table the books are on and appear to keep working. Uh oh. That woman at the front of the line is a dealer (I can tell) and she’s looking right at the table. Yikes! Thirty seconds.

Then, suddenly, two volunteers flung the doors open, and the crowd rushed in, in a manner similar to shaken champagne newly released. But before the woman made it halfway to the table I had turned around and grabbed the box. I immediately headed for the back room to store it safely but not before I saw her lunge at the corner of the table where now only an empty spot remained. Her look of disappointment was obvious. My feeling, a mix of triumph, relief, and profound joy at owning a set of gorgeous books whose author I had admired but not yet read, was not enhanced by her look of disappointment but I would be lying if I said I was sorry. I won books that I have treasured ever since; she merely lost a saleable product.

I didn’t actually open up the books to begin reading until several months later. When I did I discovered that reading Byron is like drinking at the well of perfection. I fell in love with Byron’s love, joining a long list of his contemporaries and his admirers since then. I can still quote the first three stanzas of the first piece I read, “Parisina,” which is filled with all the hope, wanting, fulfillment, and agony of love.

It is the hour when from the boughs
     The nightingale’s high note is heard ;
It is the hour when lovers’ vows
     Seem sweet in every whisper’d word ;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

But it is not to list to the waterfall
That Parisina leaves her hall,
And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light
That the lady walks in the shadow of night ;
And if she sits in Este’s bower,
’Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower—
She listens—but not for the nightingale—
Though her ear expects as soft a tale.
There glides a step through the foliage thick,
And her cheek grows pale—and her heart beats quick.
There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves,
And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves :
A moment more—and they shall meet—
’Tis past—her lover’s at her feet.

And what unto them is the world beside
With all its change of time and tide ?
Its living things—its earth and sky—
Are nothing to their mind and eye.
And heedless as the dead are they
     Of aught around, above, beneath ;
As if all else had passed away,
     They only for each other breathe ;
Their very sighs are full of joy
     So deep, that did it not decay,
That happy madness would destroy
     The hearts which feel its fiery sway :
Of guilt, of peril, do they deem
In that tumultuous tender dream ?
Who that have felt that passion’s power,
Or paused, or feared in such an hour ?
Or thought how brief such moments last :
But yet—they are already past !
Alas! we must awake before
We know such vision comes no more.

Unfortunately, the lovely sensuality of the poem, briefly hinted at in the third stanza, comes from a “love” that is today not love but abuse and a crime as Byron notes on the page preceding the poem:

The following poem is grounded in a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon’s “Antiquities of the House of Brunswick.”—I am aware, that in modern times of delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion : as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the continent.

“Under the reign of Nicholas III, Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of an attendant, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife, Parisina, and Hugo, his bastard son, a beautiful and vibrant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty ; if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate ; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of the justice of a parent.”—Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, vol. 3d. p. 470, new edition

The fourth stanza is even more clear that their love is both forbidden and doomed:

With many a lingering look they leave
     The spot of guilty gladness past ;
And though they hope, and vow, they grieve,
     As if that parting were the last.
The frequent sigh—the long embrace—
     The lip that there would cling for ever,
While gleams on Parisina’s face
     The Heaven she fears will not forgive her,
As if each calmly conscious star
Beheld her frailty from afar—
The frequent sigh, the long embrace,
Yet binds them to their trysting-place.
But it must come, and they must part
In fearful heaviness of heart,
With all the deep and shuddering chill
Which follows fast the deeds of ill.

It’s not surprising to me that Byron would use this story as a basis for the poem for among his many lovers was rumored to be his half-sister, Augusta Byron Leigh. That fact doesn’t ruin it for me, ugly as the idea is, for I make a conscious choice when reading it or remembering it to move the love that springs from it to my own affairs, my own desires, my own experiences.

“Parisina” is still a favorite because it was the poem that opened my eyes to the works of Byron, and enlarged my world. The books themselves reside in a place of honor where I can see them every day. And though it might be better (for the books’ value) to go unread, I sometimes take them down and read a few pages. I enjoy lingering over what I cannot rush, particularly when I feel harried. And in my editions, Byron feels alive. He was alive when they were published, and he remains alive in the pages. Ultimately, though, it matters relatively little to me that I came as late to Byron as I did. It only matters that I did.

Lev Raphael grew up in New York but got over it and has lived half his life in Michigan where he found his partner of twenty-four years, and a certain small fame. He escaped academia in 1988 to write full-time and has never looked back. The author of nineteen books in many genres, and hundreds of reviews, stories and articles, he’s seen his work discussed in journals, books, conference papers, and assigned in college and university classrooms. Which means he’s become homework. Who knew? Lev’s books have been translated into close to a dozen languages, some of which he can’t identify, and he’s done hundreds of readings and talks across the U.S. and Canada, and in France, England, Scotland, Austria, Germany and Israel. His memoir My Germany was published in April 2009 by the University of Wisconsin Press. You can learn more about Lev and his work on his website. Lev has reviewed for the Washington Post, Boston Review, NPR, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Jerusalem Report and the Detroit Free Press where he had a mystery column for almost a decade. He also hosted his own public radio book show where he interviewed Salman Rushdie, Erica Jong, and Julian Barnes among many other authors. Whatever the genre, he’s always looked for books with a memorable voice and a compelling story to tell. Contact Lev.

Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately the same number of books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.