Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.

Place me along the rocks I love,

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar

Der Berggipfel, der die Mühe des Ersteigens lohnt, ist dem Dichter das Bild menschlichen Strebens nach hohen Zielen; Childe Harold:

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;

He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

Must look down on the hate of those below.

Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rock, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

Auf den Höhen ist der Mensch, der die Einsamkeit liebt, der Welt entrückt und nur mit Widerstreben reißt er sich von dort los, um wieder im Weltgetriebe unterzutauchen; Childe Harold:

More blest the life of godly eremite,

Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,

Watching at eve upon the giant height,

Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene,
That he who there at such an hour has been
Will wistful linger on that hallowed spot;
Then slowly hear him from the 'witching scene,
Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot,

Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.

Verhältnismäßig selten ist die Pflanzenwelt bei Byron Gegenstand dichterischer Darstellung; im Zusammenhang mit der Hochgebirgsszenerie erscheint die Wetterfichte, die auf felsigem Boden über dem Abgrund den Stürmen trotzt; Childe Harold;

But from their nature will the tannen grow
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below

Of soil supports them'gainst the Alpine shocks

Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks

The howling tempest, till its height and frame

Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks.

Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,
And grew a giant tree;

Auch der Wald, der sonst so viel besungene, tritt in Byrons Dichtungen wenig hervor. Den düsteren sibirischen Urwald malt der Dichter in Mazeppa:

Ebenso benützt er die Tierwelt meist, um das Unheimliche zu verstärken, weniger zu freundlicher Belebung der toten Natur; so in Island:

A black rock rears its bosom o'er the spray,

The haunt of birds, a desert to mankind,
Where the rough seal reposes from the wind,
And sleeps unwieldy in his cavern dun,
Or gambols with huge frolic in the sun:
There shrilly to the passing oar is heard

The startled echo of the ocean bird,

Who rears on its bare breast her callow brood,

The feather'd fishers of the solitude.

Ferner in The Siege of Corinth:

The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,

And howling left the unburied dead;
The camels from their keepers broke;
The distant steer forsook the yoke
The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain,
And burst his girth, and tore his rein;
The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh,
Deep-mouth'd arose, and doubly harsh;
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill
Where echo roll'd in thunder still;
The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry,
Bay'd from afar complainingly,
With a mix'd and mournful sound,

Like crying habe, and beaten hound:

With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,

The eagle left his rocky nest,

And mounted nearer to the sun

Eben dort vergleicht er einen Angriff mit dem Kampf von Wölfen mit dem Büffel:

As the wolves, that headlong go

On the stately buffalo,

Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar,

And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore,

He tramples on earth, or tosses ou high

The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die.

In Heaven and Earth läßt er den Leviathan auftreten :

as rippling foam,

Which the leviathan hath lash'd

From his unfathomable home,

When sporting on the face of thee calm deep,

Subsides soon after the again has dash'd

Down, down, to where the ocean's fountains sleep.

Der gefangene Falke, dem die Schwingen beschnitten sind, der vergeblich gegen die Stäbe seines Käfigs wütet, ist dem Dichter ein Bild der menschlichen Seele, die an ihrem Flug gehindert wird; in Childe Harold:

Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing,
To whom the boundless air alone were home:
Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome,
As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat
His breast and beak against his wiry dome
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat

Of his impeded soul would through his besom eat.

Den über die See fliegenden Schwalben vergleicht er seine ruhelosen Gedanken in The Siege of Corinth:

My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,

And bear my spirit back again

Over the earth, and through the air,

A wild bird and a wanderer.

In begeisterten Tönen besingt Byron das Land der Sonne, die herrliche griechische Landschaft, zu der sich seine Seele mit unwiderstehlicher Sehnsucht hingezogen fühlt;

der ganze Zauber des Südens, die Pracht der Mittelmeerländer, über denen fast ununterbrochen der heitere Himmel lacht, spricht aus den Versen in The Bride of Abydos, die entschiedene Anklänge an das berühmte Göthesche Mignonlied zeigen:

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the Gardens of Gul in her bloom!

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute,

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky

In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,

And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye;

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?

'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun

Eine ähnliche Schilderung dieser paradiesischen Natur findet sich im Giaur:

Fair Clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.

There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees.
How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there!

Ein Bild der in Schutt und Trümmer liegenden Reste der einstigen stolzen antiken Welt, über die die schaffende Natur ein neues buntes Gewand gewoben hat, zeichnet er in Childe Harold:

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown
Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd

On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd

In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd,

Deeming it midnight

Auch dem Reiz der von menschlichen Wohnstätten belebten Landschaft leiht er dichterischen Ausdruck in The Dream:

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last

As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave

Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodee of man.
Scatter'd at internals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs; the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,

Not by the sport of nature, but of man.

Das ewig schöne, herrliche Schauspiel des anbrechenden Morgens erfüllt den Dichter mit dem wehmütigen Gefühl, daß einst ein Morgen kommt, an dem sein Auge für immer geschlossen ist, während die Sonne unbekümmert um menschliches Los die Erde zu neuem Leben weckt; Lara:

Night wanes the vapours round the mountains curl'd,
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world.
Man has another day to swell the past,
And lead him near to little, but his last;
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth;
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam,
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.
Immortal man! behold her glories shine,
And cry, exulting inly, "They are thine!"
Gaze on, while yet thy gladden'd eye may see,
A morrow comes when they are not for thee;
And grieve what may above thy senseless bier,
Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear;
Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall.
Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all;
But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,
And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil.