“Darkness” is a poem written by Lord Byron in July 1816. That year was
known as the Year Without a Summer, because Mount Tamborahad erupted in
the “Dutch East Indies” (the highest peak on the island of Sumbawa in
Indonesia), casting enough sulphur into the atmosphere to reduce global temperatures and cause abnormal weather across much of north-east America and northern Europe. This pall of darkness inspired Byron to write his poem.
Spring
Put your ear to the air.
Tune your senses to the long rhythms…
The sun is daily higher,
It knocks harder on grave’s door:
Beneath in the icy ground,
Life warms from near death
Shudders and swells and pushes against
The things that would keep it cold:
Listen….
Tune your senses to the long rhythms,
Close your eyes and see.
Billions of trillions of millions of tiny,
urgent things stir, move,
Grow from nothing to everything.
The shoving and shifting and yearning
Makes a soundless roar we feel through our feet.
The Earth…. She stretches and yawns.