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marie_aDangerous to Know, Even After Death
Patricia Brody
"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know"
— Lady Caroline Lamb's journal entry, on first meeting Lord Byron, 1812
Oh! was it in woman's nature to hear him, and not to cherish every word? It was Glenarvon – that spirit of evil whom she beheld; her soul trembled within, and felt its danger.
— Glenarvon, Lady Caroline Lamb, London, 1816
I've been chilling with these dead people,
not just reading their letters and poems
but going to their balls.
I've been under their clothes
in their skins
sticking to dampened petticoats
and floaty muslin.
I'm at Devonshire House;
Lady Someone is my mother.
At Brocket I'm running through the trees,
a lordly satyr at my heels, his lip
curled, his brow furred, skin agleam,
his hair black as the moors, of course.
"I know not," I say in some confusion,
"but this I believe; the hand of heaven never
impressed on man a countenance
so beautiful . . ." Oh if it falls on me —
"What, is it even so? — Heaven defend us!"
There are parties and morning calls,
dances from Allemagne and Spain
swirling the halls. These most nervous affairs!
Fly me, says the mad corsair.
Deep-drugged in the night
I creep from bed, Lord M. stretched
senseless beside me.
Down through Georgiana's garden
I fall, down to the white hawthorn
as the mist rises from wet petals
and opium swells in syrupy drafts,
I swoon: For God's sake, sherry!
(Sips from Spain revive me.)
And the susurrous leaves will
waken the heat in my reborn thighs.
Over the moonstones I leap, snapping twigs.
Grass clings to my winged soles.
"Do you know what I've done?" sneers he.
"I've heard but I know it is false," I breathe.
"No, I've done what they say," he boasts.
How can I not cry out?
He reaches to crush me into his coat,
his thigh strums through my gown,
I drink his sighs in the moonlight —
broken gasps — Greek and natural;
we are so gone, we are so pale,
and his maimed foot throbs in the soil.
Patricia Brody
"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know"
— Lady Caroline Lamb's journal entry, on first meeting Lord Byron, 1812
Oh! was it in woman's nature to hear him, and not to cherish every word? It was Glenarvon – that spirit of evil whom she beheld; her soul trembled within, and felt its danger.
— Glenarvon, Lady Caroline Lamb, London, 1816
I've been chilling with these dead people,
not just reading their letters and poems
but going to their balls.
I've been under their clothes
in their skins
sticking to dampened petticoats
and floaty muslin.
I'm at Devonshire House;
Lady Someone is my mother.
At Brocket I'm running through the trees,
a lordly satyr at my heels, his lip
curled, his brow furred, skin agleam,
his hair black as the moors, of course.
"I know not," I say in some confusion,
"but this I believe; the hand of heaven never
impressed on man a countenance
so beautiful . . ." Oh if it falls on me —
"What, is it even so? — Heaven defend us!"
There are parties and morning calls,
dances from Allemagne and Spain
swirling the halls. These most nervous affairs!
Fly me, says the mad corsair.
Deep-drugged in the night
I creep from bed, Lord M. stretched
senseless beside me.
Down through Georgiana's garden
I fall, down to the white hawthorn
as the mist rises from wet petals
and opium swells in syrupy drafts,
I swoon: For God's sake, sherry!
(Sips from Spain revive me.)
And the susurrous leaves will
waken the heat in my reborn thighs.
Over the moonstones I leap, snapping twigs.
Grass clings to my winged soles.
"Do you know what I've done?" sneers he.
"I've heard but I know it is false," I breathe.
"No, I've done what they say," he boasts.
How can I not cry out?
He reaches to crush me into his coat,
his thigh strums through my gown,
I drink his sighs in the moonlight —
broken gasps — Greek and natural;
we are so gone, we are so pale,
and his maimed foot throbs in the soil.
