VI. "Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, Soul of my thought' with whom I traverse earth, Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth. VII. Yet must I think less wildly:-I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: VIII. Something too much of this:-but now 'tis past, And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal; Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. IX. His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he fill'd again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deem'd its spring perpetual; but in vain! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step, he took, through many a scene. X. Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix`d He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand. XI. But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek To wear it? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, Nor feel the heart can never all grow old? Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb? Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. XII. But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd He would not yield dominion of his mind XIII. Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home; Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake. XIV. Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink. XV. But in Man's dwellings he became a thing His breast and beak against his wiry dome Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. |