Poet’s Corner: Byron–Childe Harold 2

4 August 2026

(9 October 2015)Last time we looked at some of the negative characteristics of the Romantic hero, as described by Byron in his “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.” We turn today to nature, and this hero’s love of and communion with nature, from the third canto of this poem:

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;
Where roll’d the ocean, theron was his home;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam;
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker’s foam,
Were unto him companionship; they spake
A mutual language, clearer than the tome
Of his land’s tongue, which he would oft forsake
For Nature’s pages glass’d by sunbeams on the lake.

Thus the Romantic hero communes and communicates with nature, understanding its language and speaking it more fluently than his native tongue. He finds passion in the woods, the ocean, the sky, even the desert and the cave, all of them to him the essence of beauty, the purest form of music available. These heroes are often portrayed outdoors, in lonely, empty (of people) places, contemplating the world around them. It is this impetus that explains why this hero is uncomfortable around others, for they do not see what he sees, nor feel the passion he feels, gazing upon the natural, unsullied and uncivilized world–not like Austen’s idealized and heroic Mr. Darcy! Come back Thursday for more of the Poet’s Corner. Good reading!