Note 451 — CANTO THE FOURTH[375]
Reading edition
[By "disgust," a prosaic word which seems to mar a fine stanza, Byron does not mean "distaste," aversion from the nauseous, but "tastelessness," the inability to enjoy taste. Compare the French "Avoir du dégout pour la vie," "To be out of conceit with life." Byron was "a lover of Nature," but it was seldom that he felt her "healing power," or was able to lose himself in his surroundings. But now, for the moment, he experiences that sudden uplifting of the spirit in the presence of natural beauty which brings back "the splendour in the grass, the glory in the flower!"]