Read "Address, Spoken at the Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre. Saturday, October 10, 1812" by Lord Byron online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd, / Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride / In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, / Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.
Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourn'd, / Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd! ) / Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven, / Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven; / Saw the long column of revolving flames / Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames, / While thousands, throng'd around the burning dome, / Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home, / As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone / The skies, with lightnings awful as their own, / Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall / Usurp ‘d the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall; / Say - shall this new, nor less aspiring pile, / Rear'd where once rose the mightiest in our isle, / Know the same favour which the former knew, A shrine for / Shakspeare - worthy him and you?