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byron : childe harold, 1911 

Lord Byron : Childe Harold, 1911.

Byron, Lord: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Extract from
The Mid-Pacific Magazine
Published by Alexander Hume Ford, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii,
Volume 2, Number 2, August,1911, front piece.

Introduction.
An example of "surfing" themed poetry, an often reproduced except from the famous English Romantic poet known for his enthusiasm for the ocean and swimming, notably his swim across the Hellespont in 1810.
Illustrated with a photograph from the surfing photographer, A. R. Gurrey, Jr., whose work was reproduced in many early editions of The Mid-Pacific Magazine.
The poem also appeared in A.R. Gurrey Jr.'s Surf Riders of Hawaii.
A.R. Gurrey Jr., Honolulu, 1911-1914, page 3.

The Byron quotation was followed two issues later (Volume 2 Number 4) with a poem by
John M. Giles titled Surfing.

See:
1911 John M. Giles : Surfing (a poem).
Extract from The Mid-Pacific Magazine, Volume 2, Number 4, October,1911, pages a and b.

George Gordon Byron

"George Gordon Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses including huge debts, numerous love affairs, and self-imposed exile."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron

"In 1810, Byron swam across the Hellespont (the Dardanelles), at the narrowest point a little over 1 kilometer across.

His inspiration was the Greek myth of Leander who every night swam the straits to see his lover, Hero, who would hold a torch from atop a tower, to light his way.
During a violent storm Leander drowned and, witnessing his death, Hero threw herself from the tower into the sea."
- http://www.readytogoebooks.com/LB-Swim-P67.html
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was published in 1818 (text on Wikisource) was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe", the term of endearment he used for Charlotte Harley (the artist Francis Bacon's great-great-grandmother).
The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands; in a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.
The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood.
The selected passage is from Canto IV, Stanza 184."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childe_Harold_Pilgrimage


Additional Source Documents

1765 John Byron : Tuamotus and the Gilbert Islands
Extracts from Byron in Hawkesworth: Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere, (1773), Volume 1?

1825 Lord Byron : Liliah and Floatboards.
Extracts from Voyage of the 'H.M.S. Blonde' to the Sandwich Islands in the Years 1825-26.
John Murray, Albemable Street, London.  1826. Pages 97, 137 and 138, 166, 206 to 209.

Page a (Front piece)


And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast, to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers, - they come to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea.
Made them a terror, t'was a pleasing fear;
For I was as it, were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,
As I do here.
From "Childe Harold"
Lord Byron.
Photo by A. R. Gurrey, Jr.


Byron, Lord: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
The Mid-Pacific Magazine
Published by Alexander Hume Ford, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii,
Volume 2, Number 2, August,1911, frontpiece.

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Geoff Cater (2011-2016) : Lord Byron : Childe Harold, 1911.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1911_MidPac_v2n2.html