Poem+Analysis+(Harrison)

By Lord George Gordon Byron
 * Darkness **

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light; And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those which dwelt within the eye Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch; A fearful hope was all the world contained; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour They fell and faded -and the crackling trunks Extinguished with a crash—and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them: some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food; And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again;—a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought—and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails—men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage: they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died— Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge— The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The Moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe!

**__My Analysis__** After finishing “Darkness,” I was literally stunned into a shocked silence. I had not only found the absolute perfect poem for my ILP, I was also amazed at the talent and emotion and symbolism put into this magnificent poem. The author, Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), surprisingly famous for romance, created this piece in 1816. He wrote this during a time known as “The Year Without Summer.” It was a time in history when Mount Tambora erupted and sent an incredible amount of debris and ash into the atmosphere causing odd weather, lack of sunlight, failed and dying crops, disease, and so much more. This poem was also written shortly after his marriage with Anna Isabella Milbanke ended. This may be the reason this poem is so dark and depressing, also mixed in with the fact there was little sunlight. How Byron wrote this poem is how any other great poet wrote: he was noticing the actions, feelings, and scenes around him and inside himself and putting all these factors into a piece of art. I found that the tone of this poem is what makes it the best it can be. It starts off slow and somewhat mysterious. Slowly light is vanishing and it is the beginning of a disaster. And then the tone picks up. The words flow together to create a desperate and insane feel, almost a feel of complete helplessness as life as they knew it dwindled into madness. If you notice, there are barely any complete stops in the entire eighty-two line poem. This was not an accident. Byron is not allowing the reader to stop; instead he forces the reader to continue on until the end of the poem where you can finally stop and try to process what you just read. Oddly enough, this entire poem was written in the orderly iambic pentameter. I find it strange that such an out of control poem has an underlying order to it. I think this may mean something. I think the nearly invisible order of the poem is representing the Darkness’s control, how they were controlling man and making them fall right into their trap. It was not man who were in control the whole time, but the Darkness. I also think this may have something to do with Byron himself. His marriage just ended and he is living in a place with barely any sunlight. It is hard to image the normal routine and order in your life at this point. But this poem organized in iambic pentameter suggests Byron had some control over his life, that he might have been moving on or regaining normality. // I had a dream, which was not all a dream. //

In the first line, he says that it is a dream, but wasn’t. This could mean what he is about to describe has already happened or will happen. It could perhaps be a war and he is describing the monstrosity it brings on people and what the action does to the world. It could also be the end of days or the end of the world. Byron includes many end-of-the-world scenarios in this poem: end by fire, end by darkness, and scary enough, end by man. The poem starts out calmly in a calm, saddened, almost depressed tone, but on beat in iambic pentameter. As the poem progresses the tone gets faster to match the mounting chaos the poem depicts. As the world in the poem spirals out of control, the tone of the poem tries to match its feeling with well-placed dashes and commas. // The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars //// Did wander darkling in the eternal space, //// Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth //// Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; //

In the second through fifth lines, Byron is depicting the darkness slowly creeping over the world. He starts with the //bright// sun, the one that gives most light, being extinguished. He then moves on to say the stars wandered darkling—mysteriously—away into space, rayless—meaning they too have lost their light—and pathless, just drifting wherever they feel. It also states that the icy earth—which is icy because of the absence sunlight, perhaps symbolizing that the people on it have no love and compassion—is in the moonless air. The stars and moon are gone; therefore the objects that light up the night sky are absent. Nothing natural is there to provide light. It also says the earth swung blind, with no light to guide it, and it was darkening. Either the things that provide light are getting farther and farther away, or the people on the earth are becoming progressively more evil, or a combination of both. The lack of light and the darkness closing in also represents the minds of the people of the Donner Party. Hope—the light—is getting weaker and weaker and going away as knowledge of failure and impending doom—the darkness—makes its way in. And as their hope starts to fade, the people sent from the Donner Party to find help, the Snowshoe Party, wander aimlessly through the snow-covered mountains without knowing where they are headed, just like the moon in the poem. // Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, //

Morning came and went, bringing the same darkness and giving no hope. // And men forgot their passions in the dread //// Of this their desolation; and all hearts //// Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light; // The men began to forget their goals and passions, looking out only for themselves. They would do absolutely anything for just a small amount of light. The people sent from the Donner Party called the Forlorn Hope, or as I call them the Snowshoe Party, started to only look out for themselves, like in the poem. On several occasions well after they had decided to eat the dead, a member of the Snowshoe Party, William Foster, proposed to William Eddy that they should shoot one of the women so they could have food. The idea of the insane man was not fulfilled, but there were many situations like this that were spoken and a multitude of these same ideas were thought but never voiced. All the men and women became selfish of what food—which was their light—that they received. The Snowshoe Party all forgot the goal of all of them making it out of the mountains, and helping one another achieve this goal. Instead, they all secretly hoped one would die so then they could satisfy the hunger in their stomachs with the unholy meat. // And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, //// The palaces of crowned kings -the huts, //// The habitations of all things which dwell, //// Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, //

All buildings, whether it is a palace, a church, or a simple hut, were set aflame in order to bring back some type of light which all citizens craved. It didn’t matter the value of the object burned, they just needed light and nothing mattered besides that. Whole cities were burned and the giant flames in the sky cast light and set an example for the other cities to follow their example. The Donner Party also burned everything they had. Not literally of course, but they did abandon every teaching and rule they had been taught and let true human instinct take over: the instinct to survive. They tossed away teachings, whether it was small or it was monumental, and violated the ultimate human taboo. They resorted to cannibalism. And like the first city that burned their homes, one member of the Donner Party set the example. History states that //one by one//, the Snowshoe Party gave into hunger and ate the flesh of the dead, sobbing all the way. // And men were gathered round their blazing homes //// To look once more into each other's face; //// Happy were those which dwelt within the eye //// Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch; // All the men gathered around the flames and looked at who they were near. The men among the burning city were happy, they had found light once more on their burning mountain. The Snowshoe Party, on the other hand, had the opposite reaction. After they had eaten the dead, they avoided eye-contact and were ashamed of their unholy deed. However, I must say they must have felt some secret sense of relief or happiness or reassurance that they were not going to starve to death. // A fearful hope was all the world contained; //// Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour //// They fell and faded -and the crackling trunks //// Extinguished with a crash—and all was black. //  The others around the world followed suit and a dangerous kind of hope for light took over. When the cities did give out, forests were set ablaze, but soon, those too fell cracked and charred. They were running out of fuel to burn, and soon would be cast once again into complete darkness. And when they are cascaded into darkness, the madness comes. The Donner Party had a very similar experience. Their guides, two Miwok Indians named Luis and Salvador, were leading the Snowshoe Party out of the mountains using the best extent of their knowledge of the terrain when it was covered in snow. At one point, when they had run out of meat, William Foster once again proposed to William Eddy that they should murder Luis and Salvador for food. They were only Indians, he reasoned. They weren’t //really// people. Eddy argued against it and later that night, Luis and Salvador ran away. When all their resources become extinct, people will resort to the lowest form possible to stay alive. Including committing cold-blooded murder. // The brows of men by the despairing lightWore an unearthly aspect, as by fitsThe flashes fell upon them: some lay downAnd hid their eyes and wept; and some did restTheir chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; // As the flames of the forest died, the men became worried. Some cried as they found no hope, and some smiled at the receding light. They had been nothings in life and now, at a time when status meant nothing and you relied solely on your strength and cunningness to excel, it was their time to rule. Back in the very beginning of being stranded in the mountains for the Donner Party, status dwindled. When all were stranded at Truckee Lake, and the Snowshoe Party would not set out for more than a month later, the families began to build cabins. The Graves, who were not at all very wealthy, built a sturdy double-cabin. One side was for Franklin Graves and his family, the other was for Margret Reed, her children and cook, and some others. Margret Reed, who at the beginning of the journey had been one of, if not the wealthiest woman in the party, was in need of dire help. With her husband and most of her possessions abandoned on the trail, the wealthy and prestigious Margret Reed had to rely on others for providence for herself and her children. In the face of a crisis, status was erased and no longer mattered. It didn’t matter what your income was or how expensive your clothes were. What mattered was your skill of survival and endurance, because that determined if you lived or died. // And others hurried to and fro, and fedTheir funeral piles with fuel, and looked upWith mad disquietude on the dull sky, // Others have resorted to burning bodies just to provide themselves with light. They stared at the sky and with crazy anxiety, hoped the light would come back again. In the very early stages of hiking into the mountains, the first and second days, the Donner Party also cast anxious glances at the sky and snow-tipped peaks hoping for light, and not for the snow that would trap them there. // The pall of a past world; and then againWith curses cast them down upon the dust,And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, // The men burning the bodies looked upon the sky and screamed like a wild animal, scaring the wild birds so much they fell to the ground. Their screams symbolize the change of them turning into savages; their screams so blood-curdling and terrifying, it sent the birds in the sky falling to the ground. The Snowshoe Party also had a time when starvation drove them to become savages. This was before the decision was made to eat the dead. A mouse once scurried out of its hole, and the famished people chased after it, clawing each other to get to it first. Thirteen-year-old Lemuel Murphy grabbed hold of it and stuffed it whole, alive and everything, into his mouth and ate it, crunching on its bones as it squirmed between his jaws.

// And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutesCame tame and tremulous; and vipers crawledAnd twined themselves among the multitude,Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food; // The birds flapped their useless wings. They have no use for them anymore since they can’t fly in the darkness. The beasts growing timid means they are surrendering themselves to the darkness and just giving up. As for the vipers, they banded together and tried to defend themselves. They were killed to be eaten, meaning if they are devouring snakes now, their food sources are gone and the early stages of famine are setting in. Also notice the tone Byron uses to say this. He uses a dash to make an abrupt ending. The only things that are standing up to the darkness and have kept their sanity and banded together are brushed aside and vanquished. The snakes were a spark of hope simply put out by a quick, heartless, and perfectly-placed dash. A man in the Donner Party named Charles Stanton was like the vipers and the beasts. He pushed on ahead to California to bring back supplies when the Donner Party desperately needed it when they were traveling through the desert. He fulfilled his promise and brought back supplies. When snowbound at the lake with the others, he wouldn’t give up and agreed to lead an escape out of the mountains with Franklin Graves and Luis and Salvador. He was definitely like the vipers: he would keep fighting. But on the fifth day in the Snowshoe Party’s journey in mid-December, more than a month snow-bound and on meager rations, also suffering from hypothermia, hyperthermia, and snow-blindness, Charles Stanton turned into the beasts and gave up. He gave into the mountain’s elements just like the beasts had given into the darkness, and on the fifth day he died while calmly smoking his pipe. // And War, which for a moment was no more,Did glut himself again;—a meal was boughtWith blood, and each sate sullenly apartGorging himself in gloom: no love was left;All earth was but one thought—and that was death, // The god of War, or just War himself, which before was not present since there was no war, watched with satisfaction at the madness. He feasted on the blood spilled in the new war and on the dead in the darkness. And men kept fighting and love diminished until finally the whole idea of it perished and all that was left on the earth was the thought of death. Near the end of the Snowshoe Party’s journey out of the mountain, one of the most horrific things occurred. By now, many had lost their sanity and they stumbled with bloody, cracked feet, trying to find freedom. There was little love left, and almost no compassion. And the Snowshoe Party then did literally buy a meal with blood. They came across Luis and Salvador after they had run away before. William Foster shot and murdered both of them and the seven surviving members of the Snowshoe Party stripped the bodies of their flesh for a future meal. // Immediate and inglorious; and the pangOf famine fed upon all entrails—menDied, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;The meagre by the meagre were devoured, // Starvation sat upon all men’s stomachs. Soon many started to die. When they died, they were skeletons with flesh, bony and mal-nourished. The ones who were still alive jumped upon the dead and to survive, exactly like the Donner Party, consumed the flesh of the fallen. This part of the poem is exactly what happened with the Snowshoe Party. Charles Stanton had died, leaving no body, but four others had died. They were Franklin Graves, telling his two daughters, Sarah and Mary Ann, to use his body for food on his deathbed, Antonio, the Mexican drover, thirteen-year-old Lemuel Murphy, and Patrick Dolan. The Snowshoe Party thought they all had died of starvation, which is why they thought they had to eat the bodies to survive, but really the others had died of hypothermia. The Snowshoe Party could have actually lived longer without the consumption of flesh; their strength just would have been depleted. Their decisions show the true panic and terror that was going through their heads. It is incredibly sad to know in our time that the Snowshoe Party could have made a different choice and never have resorted to cannibalism: a fact that would sit on their minds for eternity. // Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,And he was faithful to a corse, and keptThe birds and beasts and famished men at bay,Till hunger clung them, or the drooping deadLured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,But with a piteous and perpetual moan,And a quick desolate cry, licking the handWhich answered not with a caress—he died. //  This bunch of lines symbolizes complete chaos. Even dogs, the most loyal of animals, are turning against their masters in order to find food. But one dog stays loyal and tries to keep everything else calm and in order for as long as it can. Tragically, the master could not provide for the dog and the dog’s fate was sealed and he later died; the madness returning. In the Snowshoe Party, near the end of the journey, there was madness like this. Foster’s proposal to murder the women and use them for food, the killing of the Indians, and there is one account of where William Eddy and Mary Ann Graves shot down a deer. Like the savages they grew to be, Eddy and Mary Ann got to the body and drank the blood of the deer. Of all the people in the Snowshoe Party, William Eddy is the best representation of the dog. He tries to maintain control and order among the group as they travel for salvation. But Eddy’s ending isn’t as sad as the dog’s. Eddy makes it out with six others to live on. // The crowd was famished by degrees; but twoOf an enormous city did survive,And they were enemies: they met besideThe dying embers of an altar-placeWhere had been heaped a mass of holy thingsFor an unholy usage: they raked up,And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton handsThe feeble ashes, and their feeble breathBlew for a little life, and made a flameWhich was a mockery; then they lifted upTheir eyes as it grew lighter, and beheldEach other's aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—Even of their mutual hideousness they died, // Amazingly, two men, enemies, did survive the famine. They made their way to the altar-place and selfishly raked up holy things. That is what has kept them alive for so long: selfishness. Not caring if they betray others for themselves. They gently blew on the flame with their breath, they wished for light to return. And when it did, and lighted up the faces of each other, they saw what monsters they had become. They died in their horror. I think what Byron is trying to say to you is selfishness will only get you so far, and in the end, it isn’t the thing you were selfish about that kills you, it’s you, yourself. In the Donner Party, selfishness run rampart. Back at the lake, Elizabeth Graves and Margret Reed fought over hides and what little meat was left. A group of men promised to bring some of the Donner children out of the mountains, but instead just left them at the lake camp thinking the kids would slow them down. But what were incredibly selfish were the acts of Louis Keseberg. He was found all alone up on the mountain, after most everyone had been led out of the mountains, with the dead Donner’s money and expensive items hidden away. The only reason he had survived was because he had eaten many of the dead bodies. No, he did not die like the two men in the poem, but when he got out of the mountain, he was shunned and regarded as a cannibal and rumored murderer of Tamzene Donner. // Unknowing who he was upon whose browFamine had written Fiend. The world was void,The populous and the powerful was a lump,Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,And nothing stirred within their silent depths;Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they droppedThey slept on the abyss without a surge—The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;The winds were withered in the stagnant air, // This part is what I call what happens after the disaster. All is silent and unmoving. Nothing stirs, there is no life left on the earth. Everything has died, from men to the seas. Darkness and famine have driven men to end their existence on their very own. There is a calming tone, as destruction has prevailed and nothing is left. The mountains of the Sierra Nevada had the same feel after everything was over. The cabins were left in the melting snow to slowly fall down and rot, the bodies hardened and peacefully mummified, the howling wind softly went away. All was calm up in the mountains were such tragedy, such horror, had just occurred, just like the world in “Darkness.” // And the clouds perished! Darkness had no needOf aid from them—She was the Universe! //  The final end. Darkness has covered everything, she no longer needs the clouds or the moon or the tides. They are all useless. Darkness is everything now, she is literally the universe. And for the surviving members of the Donner Party, darkness was everything too. Only darkness was sadness. Many had lost their entire families, their children, their siblings. The Donner children were orphaned, as were the Graves children. Sarah Graves lost her husband; William Eddy lost his wife and child. But unlike the world in “Darkness,” the Donner Party can rebuild and get stronger. They do not have to be covered by sadness, by darkness. After reading and analyzing this poem, “Darkness” has become one of my favorite poems. It was not only the great story Lord Byron tells in this story, but what really captivated me were the rhythm, tone, and especially the mood. The helplessness, and yet the small spark of hope like the vipers. Lord Byron uses excellent imagery to depict what is occurring in the world of “Darkness,” which enhances the reader’s experience and makes the poem greater than it already was. I am excited to go and find more poems by Lord George Gordon Byron.