When you first read “Darkness,” by George Gordon, also known as Lord Byron, you get a very dark feeling about the nature of man. Lord Byron writes the theme of death and darkness, hence the title, through the entirety of the poem. Not only can we see death and darkness but we see a small sense of nature and love, but not in a way that past poets we have read of such as Dorothy Wordsworth who seems to bring out the best within nature. While this small theme of love is given Byron gives us the conflicting theme of hate between men. “Darkness” may be first read as a poem just about death of all, but it can also be seen as a poem about the destruction of man can easily wipe out human kind and that human kind takes too much of nature for granted. Within the first three stanzas that Byron writes “The bright sun was extinguished” we get a feel of the first theme of darkness (2). Byron continues on to describe the earth as cold and is “blackening in the moonless air” which gives us a sense that no light has made it to earth, not even the light of the moon which only comes out at night (5). Men at this time of despair for light seemed to burn their own houses to get some source of light and to “look once more into each other’s face” because there is no light at all coming through. Lord Byron is actually describing the month of June of 1816 which was called The Year Without a Summer. This was due to a volcano that had erupted and covered the earth’s atmosphere in volcanic ash which caused nearly no or little sunlight. The effects were drastic causing fields to fail all over the northern hemisphere, widespread famine and many diseases. Along for despair of light men could not handle the darkness “some lay down / And hid their eyes and wept” (23-24). There were then men who seemed to accept the darkness but grew insane as Byron describes, “some did rest / Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled” (25). Th