Here are some notes on the poems I use in the book.
Epigraph: was the source for Webster’s title the White Devil. It means the enemy that seems fair (“white”) is more devious and destructive than the one that appears evil (“black”). Sorry if that’s obvious.
Most of the rest of the poetry is from Byron.
Section epigraphs:
What exile from himself can flee? – from Child Harolde’s Pilgrimage.
What are a thousand living loves to that which cannot quit the dead? – from a “Thyrza” poem, written about the real John Edleston when Byron found out that Edleston was dead from tuberculosis. Quoted in entirety below. A very moving poem, and crammed with lines that, in or out of context, make Byron seem to be hinting at a “haunting” type of relationship between himself and the dead Edleston. This got me very jazzed up in the early days of my research. I half expected to stumble across a historical account of an Edleston haunting. (I didn’t.)
And a spirit of the air hath begirt thee with a snare – from Byron’s play Manfred, a long passage where spirits of despair try to lure the romantic hero Manfred to destruction. Actually a terrific example of not a ghost story but a ghost poem, quoted at length below.
Poems in or referred to in the text:
To Mary is a real Byron poem, but refers to another hooker, not our friend Caroline Cameron.
Darkness is a famous stand-alone Byron poem.
Expert in my own craft, demolitions – this is of course my own doggerel, as is the “song” between Byron and Augusta in the kissing scene (Your father bagged my mother). I am aiming for an Auden / Isherwood effect, trying to model the “play about Byron” after something they would have written. I read and re-read their weird and appealing plays, The Dog Beneath The Skin especially, after college. I don’t think they would have done anything so nuts as write a play about another poet, in verse; but then again they tackled The Rake’s Progress as an opera so perhaps a play about Byron isn’t so far-fetched.
The final verse (The dinner and the soirée too were done) is from Don Juan, Canto 16—and actually precedes a ghost story in that poem.
My favorite poems (relevant to the story) in full:
One Struggle More, and I am Free (Thyrza elegy)
One struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain;
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.
It suits me well to mingle now
With things that never pleased before!
Though every joy is fled below,
What future grief can touch me more ?
Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form’d to live alone:
I’ll be that light, unmeaning thing
That smiles with all, and weeps with none.
It was not thus in days more dear,
It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;
Thou ‘rt nothing — all are nothing now.
In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!
The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o’er a sepulchre.
Though gay companions o’er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill :
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart, — the heart is lonely still!
On many a lone and lovely night
It sooth’d to gaze upon the sky;
For then I deem’d the heavenly light
Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:
And oft I thought at Cynthia’s noon,
When sailing o’er the Ægean wave,
“Now Thyrza gazes on that moon” —
Alas, it gleam’d upon her grave!
When stretch’d on fever’s sleepless bed,
And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,
“‘Tis comfort still,” I faintly said,
“That Thyrza cannot know my pains:”
Like freedom to the time-worn slave,
A boon ’tis idle then to give,
Relenting Nature vainly gave
My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!
My Thyrza’s pledge in better days,
When love and life alike were new!
How different now thou meet’st my gaze!
How tinged by time with sorrow’s hue!
The heart that gave itself with thee
Is silent — ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e’en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.
Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!
Though painful, welcome to my breast!
Still, still preserve that love unbroken,
Or break the heart to which thou’rt press’d.
Time tempers love, but not removes,
More hallow’d when its hope is fled:
Oh! what are thousand living loves
To that which cannot quit the dead?
Incantation from Manfred
When the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,
And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answer’d owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine,
With a power and with a sign.
Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which will not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gather’d in a cloud;
And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.
Though thou seest me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye
As a thing that, though unseen,
Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turn’d around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel
Shall be what thou must conceal.
And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptiz’d thee with a curse;
And a spirit of the air
Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun,
Which shall make thee wish it done.
From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatch’d the snake,
For there it coil’d as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
In proving every poison known,
I found the strongest was thine own.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy;
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass’d for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others’ pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!
And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny;
Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;
Lo! the spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
O’er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been pass’d–now wither!