they supplied him, however, with much of the irony wrought into
his masterpiece, "Don Juan." His poetic genius derived its strongest
stimulus from his imbittered domestic life and from his travels in Spain,
Italy and Greece. This twofold character of the poet it is that is revealed
in his best poems, "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan." He used both works as
receptacles for the most incongruous ideas. "If things are farcical," he
once said to Trelawney, "they will do for 'Don Juan'; if heroical, you
shall have another canto of 'Childe Harold.'" This means of disposing of
his poetic ideas accounts for the great volume of Byron's verse as well as
for its inequality. That "Don Juan" was never finished cannot therefore be
regretted.

[Sidenote: His last verses]

Byron's last verses were lines written on January 22, 1824, at Missolonghi.
To one of his English military associates in the expedition of Lepanto he
remarked: "You were complaining that I never write any poetry now. This is
my birthday, and I have just finished something which, I think, is better
than what I usually write." They were the famous lines, "On this Day I
complete my Thirty-sixth Year":

'Tis time the heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!

* * * * *

Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!)
Awake my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honorable death
Is here--Up, to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best!
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest!

[Sidenote: Russian suzerainty rejected by Greeks]

[Sidenote: Ibrahim invades Greece]

[Sidenote: Sack of Psara]

When Byron died, Missolonghi had been delivered from its first siege.
Greece was plunged in civil war. Kolokotrones, who set himself up against
the government of Konduriottes and Kolletes, was overthrown and lodged in
a prison on the island of Hydra. An offer of Russian intervention at the
price of Russian suzerainty was rejected by the Greeks. Encouraged by this,
the Sultan appealed to his va