Rape of Nature

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream" says Byron beginning Darkness, meaning he is aware but not fully awake, which I suppose is synonymous to the rest of mankind's condition of "self". The poem continues with its exploration of the self, where stating rather blatantly that by being absorbed in a self-dream leads to an apocalypse of sorts. I think what Byron is trying to depict is that when one is totally absorbed in their own "self" reality, they are concentrated on how to protect themselves and seek superficial material and in this way are pitted against the rest of their fellow man to get these materials and to survive. Therefore, people are "slain for food, and War...did glut himself again." This poem was written in the thick of the industrial revolution and forecasts a destruction of nature that we are dealing with today (global warming, land pollution etc.) By people being totally absorbed in themselves, they must act according to this imaginary dream, which can only be self-centered and selfish.

Around the final 10 lines, Byron describes how most people perceive natural elements like clouds, and the moon saying "the moon, their mistress, had expired before; the winds were withered in the stagnant air." It is not the physical moon or wind that has disappeared from the earth but man's perception that these elements exist because people are so stuck in a "self" imagined dream-thought reality. The glowing moon, the cooling wind, or any other existing part of nature that the romantics found so rewarding is unseen by the vast of mankind and therefore, its pleasure escapes them. I think one of Byron's points is that by not having this pleasure, mankind suffers sadness and mankind pollutes the earth for individual gains and unnecessary acts of survival because most people cannot find the default happy state provided by nature that the poet's do. I see Byron as putting this information out into the world as a fact and a call for people to be aware of their dreaming tendency but it does not specifically give a solution to man's self-centeredness and in this way, inevitably fails to make a lasting change on man (as is evident by our still "self-centered" tendencies, wars, and rape of nature). This poem is more a piece of art rather than one of social action.