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The works of Lord Byron

A new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge and R. E. Prothero
Byron, George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)

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Vol. I. HOURS OF IDLENESS AND OTHER EARLY POEMS.
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Vol. II.
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Vol. III.
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Vol. IV.
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Vol. V.
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SARDANAPALUS:
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THE TWO FOSCARI:
  
[epigraph]
  
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
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ACT I.
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ACT II.
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ACT III.
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ACT IV.
 I. 
Scene I.
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ACT V.
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CAIN:
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HEAVEN AND EARTH;
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WERNER;
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WERNER.
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THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:
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THE AGE OF BRONZE;
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THE ISLAND;
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[volume]

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I.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
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He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.
 

The reader is apprised, that the name of Lara being Spanish, and no circumstance of local and natural description fixing the scene or hero of the poem to any country or age, the word “Serf,” which could not be correctly applied to the lower classes in Spain, who were never vassals of the soil, has nevertheless been employed to designate the followers of our fictitious chieftain.

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