A light broke in upon my brain, — It was the carol of a bird; It ceased, and then it came again, The sweetest song ear ever heard. - Lord Byron

Above or Love, Hope, Hate or Fear,
It lives all passionless and pure:
An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its years in moments shall endure.
Away, away, without a wing,
O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly;
A nameless and eternal thing,
Forgetting what it was to die.

The Dying Gladiator

I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand - his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low -
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him - he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not - his eyes
Were with his heart and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young-barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother - he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday -
All this rushed with his blood - Shall he expire
And unavenged? - Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the Glowing Hours with Flying feet.