Selfishness and Death: All the Good Stuff in Byron and Clare

            The poems “Darkness” by Lord Byron and “An Invite, to Eternity” by John Clare each unravel a potential death – one of society, and the other, of a poet and his maiden. Each poem also develops a theme of choice, and how it can become selfish or self-centered. More specifically, the voice of “An Invite, to Eternity” asks for his maiden to join him in death, which can be viewed at one time as endearing or as irrational at another. “Darkness”, on the other hand, portrays a scenario in which men and women are self-motivated in their efforts to avoid death and its traps. This contrast between the two poems reveals different perceptions of human resolve in the acknowledgement of death and peril’s existence.

            Although fantastic descriptions and devastating trials appear again and again, the first line of “Darkness” notes that it “was not all a dream” (Byron l. 1). In effect, this provokes the reader to consume the poem as factual or, at least, probable. Similarly, John Clare writes in “An Invite, to Eternity” that the maiden and speaker will choose “At once to be and not to be” (Clare l. 21), thus discarding the Shakespearean query and terming it a conjunction. In both instances, death is made realistic in its existence, even if its features remain surreal. Consequently, the poems can become lenses into the human reaction to a real “death”.

            The speaker of “An Invite, to Eternity” may propose death to his maiden, but he does not imply the death of his ego. In what is a consensual pursuit of death, he ruminates on how the skies “around us lie” (l. 24) and as such, posits himself and the maiden in the center of it all. He suggests that sisters “know us not” (l. 16), again placing emphasis on them. Again, the poem itself acts as a person inviting someone else to death and places the human being as the controller. With this setting in mind, it is very interesting to dissect intention: is this a selfish manipulation of life, or is it a well-intentioned plea for a loved one? Rather than ask, “would thou go with me”, the speaker asks “wilt thou go with me,” (l. 1) as a sign that the poem is not simple a test, as in the situation of Abraham and God, and instead is a plea in the face of something imminent.

            Throughout the poem “Darkness”, monstrosity and decline are depicted vividly. Also depicted are the actions of people, whose hearts “were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light” (l. 9). This proposal of selfish people roaming the earth is juxtaposed with the decline of defined social roles and kingdoms and huts “burned for beacons” (l. 13). The only instance of selflessness comes in the role of a non-human – a dog. This inclusion may be deliberate, in order to show how humanity has turned against one another in its fight against darkness and death. Perhaps as a nod to how realistic the event is, not even the faithful dog survives. This fact complicates the notion of selflessness being the ultimate good, as it seems short-sighted for the dog in the end to think of another. Regardless, the plagues upon the dog and of humanity illustrate the power of death. For whatever reason, Byron couples this selfishness with the decline of social institutions and the fact that “the populous and the powerful was a lump” (l. 70). The selfish pursuits of man, then, are bleak and unruly.

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) by Salvador Dali

            In each poem, people confront death. Clare points to the “sad non-identity” of death, and Byron moreover mentions the world as “Seasonless… manless” (l. 71). The poems are similar in their advocacy for ego, with a lack of communal identity in “Darkness” and individual identity in “An Invite” seen as unfavorable. In my reading, though, the speaker of “An Invite” selfishly joins death and requests for his love to come along, while in “Darkness”, men “selfishly” fight death and look out for themselves. What is more interesting, in the end, is how one defines selfishness in the face of death. If acceptance and care for others is paramount, than the people of “Darkness” are wildly selfish and brutish. Yet, if those qualities are not, one could see why the faithful dog is foolish. Interestingly, if one puts a premium on care for others, the speaker of “An Invite” can either be read as a selfish promoter of death to a loved one, or as fool who is faithful to a lover to the point where it kills them both.