Lines Written in an Album, at Malta
Lines Written in an Album, at Malta - context Summary
Composed in Malta, 1809
Written while Byron was staying in Malta, this short album poem addresses a future reader and frames the poet’s name like an epitaph. Byron asks that when the name is read in years to come, the reader remember him as if dead and imagine his heart ‘‘buried here.’' The piece conveys a deliberately mournful, self-memorializing mood suited to a private inscription in a visitor’s album during his Mediterranean travels.
Read Complete AnalysesAs o’er the cold sepulchral stone Some name arrests the passer-by; Thus, when thou view’st this page alone, May mine attract thy pensive eye! And when by thee that name is read, Perchance in some succeeding year, Reflect on me as on the dead, And think my heart is buried here.
September 14, 1809.
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