In an echo of the passage from Canto III, vi,
Harold identifies ‘‘The Beings of the mind’’ as
being of more than clay. They are ‘‘essentially
immortal,’’ and they afford us eventually a more
‘‘beloved existence’’ (IV, v). Eventually, though,
the creations, the ‘‘Beings,’’ yield importance to
the mind itself. In stanza xxi Byron affirms an
even greater strength in the mind:
Existence may be borne, and the deep
root
Of life and sufferance make its firm
abode
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute
The Camel labours with the heaviest,
load,
And the wolf dies in silence—not
bestowed
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler
clay
May temper it to bear,—it is but for a
day.
The poet’s eye is turning yet more inward,
scanning the creations of the mind for their
beauty and life, but praising the mind even
more because it can will endurance for our mor-
tal clay. No longer seeking to transcend bodily
life by momentary engagement with the higher
world of art, Childe Harold gradually adopts a
quite acceptance of his unrewarding quest. In
stanza cxxvii he says that it is ‘‘a base / Abandon-
ment of reason to resign / Our right of thought—
ourlastandonlyplace/Ofrefuge....’’Thislast
proclamation reaffirms his suspicion, first voiced
in stanza xxv, that perhaps the best he can do on
his pilgrimage is ‘‘To meditate amongst decay.’’
The very power of art to revitalize life depends
upon the mind’s receptivity; the mind itself is our
last refuge.
Byron’s belief in the shaping power of poetry
undoubtedly influenced his notion of the indom-
itable force of the mind; poetry, which gives life to
the poet, is of course a creation of the mind. But
the Prometheus myth added another dimension
to Byron’s developing conviction that the mind
itself is man’s greatest resource. Prometheus had
long fascinated Byron, enough so that he wrote
an entire poem about the rebellious Titan. His
defiance of Zeus, his opposition to a force sup-
posedly greater than himself, made Prometheus
attractive to Byron at this point in his develop-
ment. The Titan epitomizes heroic volition,
terrifying assertion of one’s own will. Zeus stood
as a judge who enforced illogical and indefensible
laws. Through an act of will, Prometheus became
the soul judge of himself by refusing to accept
any external standard or law. He became a law
unto himself, and it is to this same position that
the poet himself came. Having failed to find
coherence and stability in a world of orthodox
standards and conduct, Byron concluded that
coherence could at least be achieved within the
individual mind. With this pervasive sense of
individual order,Manfredwas composed.
Simply stated,Manfreddramatizes the refusal
of the mind to yield to anything outside itself.
Manfred, then, at least in part, develops from
Childe Harold whose last refuge is the mind itself.
As did Childe Harold, Manfred sought for some-
thing more than the ‘‘humble virtues,’’ ‘‘hospitable
home,’’ and ‘‘spirit patient’’ represented by the
Chamois Hunter. But like Childe Harold, Manfred
was destined to be an alien: ‘‘though I wore the
form,Ihadnosympathywithbreathingflesh’’
(II, ii, 56–57). Tormentedby his sense of guilt for
having loved ‘‘as we should not love’’ (II, i, 27),
Manfred seeks forgetfulness. He is offered what he
needs by the Witch of the Alps if he will only yield
his will to her. Manfred’s reply to the Witch of the
Alps might be the poet’s to the world:
I will not swear—Obey! and whom? the
Spirits
Whose presence I command, and be the
slave
Of those who served me—Never!
(II, ii, 157–159)
Even at the moment of death when the spirits
come to claim him, Manfred asserts the suprem-
acy of his own will:
I do not combat against Death, but thee
And thy surrounding angels; my past
power
Was purchased by no compact with thy
crew,
But by superior science—penance, daring,
And length of watching, strength of
mind,...
(III, iv, 112–116)
Strength of mind, the impassioned assertion
that the individual will is the most powerful of
forces. Manfred’s anguish came not from any
external imposition, but from within—and so
does his death. The common mind (the abbot),
shaped by orthodoxy, is at a loss to understand
Manfred’s willful death. It is this same commonChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage