Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
The seven stanzas beginning with ‘‘There is a
pleasure in the pathless woods,’’ are stanzas
CLXXVIII to CLXXXIV (178–184) of Canto
IV ofChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage, published in
1818 by Lord Byron, one of the greatest of the
English Romantic poets. The last six of these
stanzas are also known as the apostrophe to
the ocean, since they are directly addressed to
the ocean.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimageis a long, semi-
autobiographical poem in which Byron records
his impressions of places he visited during sev-
eral tours of Europe, the first of which took place
in 1811. Childe is the medieval title for a young
man who was soon to become a knight.
The first two cantos of the poem were
published in 1812, and Canto III followed in
- In 1817, Byron visited Venice and Rome,
and his reflections on what he saw there form
the basis of Canto IV. In May 1817, Byron went
to the top of the Alban Mount, near Rome,
from which he was able to gaze out at the Med-
iterranean Sea, and this experience inspired
the stanzas addressed to the ocean inChilde
Harold’s Pilgrimage. These stanzas are exam-
ples of the Spenserian stanzas that Byron uses
throughout the poem. They show Byron’s love
of nature and also reveal his meditations on the
passing of time and the transience of human
endeavors.
45LORD BYRON
1818