The bars survive the captive they enthral; | |
The day drags through though storms keep out the sun; | |
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on: | |
XXXIII | |
Even as a broken mirror, which the glass | |
290 | In every fragment multiplies; and makes |
A thousand images of one that was, | |
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks; | |
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, | |
Living in shatter’d guise, and still, and cold, | |
295 | And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, |
Yet withers on till all without is old, | |
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. | |
XXXIV | |
There is a very life in our despair, | |
Vitality of poison, — a quick root | |
300 | Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were |
As nothing did we die; but Life will suit | |
Itself to Sorrow’s most detested fruit, | |
Like to the apples | |
All ashes to the taste: Did man compute | |
305 | Existence by enjoyment, and count o’er |
Such hours ’gainst years of life, — say, would he name threescore? | |
xxxv | |
The Psalmist number’d out the years of man: | |
They are enough; and if thy tale be | |
Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span, | |
310 | More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo! |
Millions of tongues record thee, and anew | |
Their children’s lips shall echo them, and say – | |
‘Here, where the sword united nations drew, | |
Our countrymen were warring on that day!’ | |
315 | And this is much, and all which will not pass away. |
XXXVI | |
There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, | |
Whose spirit antithetically mixt | |
One moment of the mightiest, and again | |
On little objects with like firmness fixt, | |
320 | Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, |
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; | |
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek’st | |
Even now to re-assume the imperial mien, | |
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene! | |
XXXVII | |
325 | Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! |
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name | |
Was ne’er more bruited in men’s minds than now | |
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, | |
Who woo’d thee once, thy vassal, and became | |
330 | The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert |
A god unto thyself; nor less the same | |
To the astounded kingdoms all inert, | |
Who deem’d thee for a time whate’er thou didst assert. | |
XXXVIII | |
Oh, more or less than man – in high or low, | |
335 | Battling with nations, flying from the field; |
Now making monarchs’ necks thy footstool, now | |
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield; | |
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, | |
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, | |
340 | However deeply in men’s spirits skill’d, |
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, | |
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. | |
XXXIX | |
Yet well thy soul hath brook’d the turning tide | |
With that untaught innate philosophy, | |
345 | Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, |
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. | |
When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, | |
To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled | |
With a sedate and all-enduring eye; – | |
350 | When Fortune fled her spoil’d and favourite child, |
He stood unbow’d beneath the ills upon him piled. | |
XL | |
Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them | |
Ambition steel’d thee on too far to show | |
That just habitual scorn, which could contemn | |
355 | Men and their thoughts; ’twas wise to feel, not so |
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, | |
And spurn the instruments thou wert to use | |
Till they were turn’d unto thine overthrow; | |
’Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; | |
360 | So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. |
XLI | |
If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, | |
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, | |
Such scorn of man had help’d to brave the shock; | |
But men’s thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, | |
365 | Their |
The part of Philip’s son was thine, not then | |
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) | |
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men; | |
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. | |
XLII | |
370 | But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, |
And | |
And motion of the soul which will not dwell | |
In its own narrow being, but aspire | |
Beyond the fitting medium of desire; | |
375 | And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, |
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire | |
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, | |
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. | |
XLIII | |
This makes the madmen who have made men mad | |
380 | By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, |
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add | |
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things | |
Which stir too strongly the soul’s secret springs, | |
And are themselves the fools to those they fool; | |
385 | Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings |
Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school | |
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule: | |
XLIV | |
Their breath is agitation, and their life | |
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, | |
390 | And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, |
That should their days, surviving perils past, | |
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast | |
With sorrow and supineness, and so die; | |
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste | |
395 | With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, |
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. | |
XLV | |
He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find | |
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; | |
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, | |
400 | Must look down on the hate of those below. |
Though high | |
And far | |
Round | |
Contending tempests on his naked head, | |
405 | And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. |
XLVI | |
Away with these! true Wisdom’s world will be | |
Within its own creation, or in thine, | |
Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee, | |
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? | |
410 | There Harold gazes on a work divine, |
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, | |
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain vine, | |
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells | |
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. | |
XLVII | |
415 | And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, |
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, | |
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind, | |
Or holding dark communion with the cloud. | |
There was a day when they were young and proud, | |
420 | Banners on high, and battles pass’d below; |
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, | |
And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, | |
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. | |
XLVIII | |
Beneath these battlements, within those walls, | |
425 | Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state |
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls, | |
Doing his evil will, nor less elate | |
Than mightier heroes of a longer date. | |
What want these outlaws | |
430 | But History’s purchased page to call them great? |