Canto 4 from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

I thank Miranda Harris (who happens to be my mother) for sending in this beautiful extract from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Lord Byron’s long-ish, but extremely readable, narrative poem about a young man on a Grand Tour of Italy and Greece. It’s full of fun digressions and great lines, dwelling especially on comparisons between Art and Nature. In this extract, Nature seems to be winning, and the heightened diction makes for some really lovely poetry.