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LORD BYRON
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824), known more commonly as Lord Byron, was a leading British poet in the Romantic movement. In his narrative poem Don Juan, Lord Byron describes man and love from a woman’s perspective. She laments that men don’t take love seriously and are often preoccupied with fame, glory, and power. It’s a cautionary tale that men should not take love lightly, because women don’t.
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,
’Tis woman’s whole existence: man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone.