by John Clare (1793 - 1864)
Byron's Funeral
Language: English
My eye was arrested by straggling groups of common people… The train of a funeral suddenly appeared on which a young girl that stood beside me gave a deep sigh and uttered “Poor Lord Byron.” I looked up in the young girl’s face; it was dark and beautiful, and I could almost feel in love with her… She had counted the carriages in her mind as they passed… sixty-three or -four in all. The gilt ones that led the procession were empty. I saw his remains born away on its last journey to that place where fame never comes; though it lives like a shadow and lingers like a sunbeam on his grave it cannot enter.
Note: this is a prose text. The line breaks were added arbitrarily.
Authorship:
- by John Clare (1793 - 1864), "Byron's Funeral", written 1825, first published 1988 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by David Evan Thomas (b. 1958), "Byron's Funeral", 1990 [baritone, piano], from Heard in a Violent Ward, no. 3. [ sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2018-08-27
Line count: 11
Word count: 116