This volume of the Freshwater Seas Lord Byron set consists of 54 poems written during the years 1809-1816. Many were included in various editions of longer works, particularly the 1812 and later editions of Childe Harold; others were published in various newspapers and periodicals, especially the Morning Chronicle; a few were not published until after the author's death, sometimes long after.

The mood is as varied as were the occasions of the compositions. Quite a few echo the tone of his satires; some are merely witty bon-mots, others are more or less deeply felt expressions of emotion, ranging from perfunctory to sincere. Some show the puckish humor that makes one think that Byron and Ogden Nash were somehow cousins under the skin. Of the Romantics, it's really only Byron who shows such a comic and satiric side.

In short, here is part of the byroads-and-backwaters side of Lord Byron - poems you probably won't hear elsewhere, poems he wrote casually and sometimes never published, but poems that offer a side of him not seen elsewhere.

Public Domain (P)2010 Robert Bethune

A Freshwater Seas production.