“London”

I wander thro’ each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry Every black’ning Church appalls ; And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Lord Byron

Byron is not as much of a player on the GRE as you might imagine, though the fact that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimages is written in Spensarian stanzas is the kind of thing that those GRE people would love to quiz you over.

“She Walks in Beauty”

She walks in beauty, like the night            Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright            Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light            Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less,            Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress,            Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express            How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,            So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,            But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below,            A heart whose love is innocent!

"Manfred"

A 1817 poem by Lord Byron, and considered by some to be his response to the ghost story craze sweeping through England at the time, Manfred is a dramatic poem very much in the tradition of Goethe’s Faust. It begins:

Mandred: The lamp must be replenish'd, but even then It will not burn so long as I must watch. My slumbers-- if I slumber-- are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men. But grief should be the instructor of the wise; Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Philosophy and science, and the springs Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world, I have essay'd, and in my mind there is A power to make these subject to itself-- But they avail not: I have done men good, And I have met with good even among men-- But this avail'd not: I have had my foes, And none have baffled, many fallen before me-- But this avail'd not: Good, or evil, life, Powers, passions, all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes Or lurking love of something on the earth. Now to my task.--