And the half-inarticulate blasphemy!

There be some here with worse than frenzy foul,
Some who do still goad on the o'er-labour'd mind,
And dim the little light that's left behind
With needless torture, as their tyrant will

Is wound up to the lust of doing ill.

With these and with their victims am I class'd,

'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have pass'd;

'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close:

So let it be, for then I shall repose.

IV

I have been patient, let me be so yet;

I had forgotten half I would forget,

But it revives Oh! would it were my lot

To be forgetful as I am forgot!

Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell

In this vast lazar-house of many woes?

Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind,

Nor words a language, nor e'en men mankind;
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his separate hell-
For we are crowded in our solitudes -

Many, but each divided by the wall

Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;
While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call —
None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all,
Who was not made to be the mate of these,
Nor bound between Distraction and Disease.
Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here?

Who have debased me in the minds of men,

Debarring me the usage of my own,

Blighting my life in best of its career,

Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear?
Would I not pay them back these pangs again,
And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan?
The struggle to be calm, and cold distress
Which undermines our Stoical success?
No! still too proud to be vindictive, I
Have pardon'd princes' insults and would die.
Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake
I weed all bitterness from out my breast,
It hath no business where thou art a guest;
Thy brother hates - but I can not detest;
Thou pitiest not- but I can not forsake.

V

Look on a love which knows not to despair,
But all unquench'd is still my better part,
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart
As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud,
Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud,
Till struck, forth flies the all-ethereal dart!

And thus at the collision of thy name

The vivid thought still flashes through my frame, And for a moment all things as they were

Flit by me; - they are gone I am the same.

And yet my love without ambition grew;
I knew thy state, my station, and I knew
A princess was no love-mate for a bard;

I told it not, I breathed it not, it was
Sufficient to itself, its own reward;
And if my eyes reveal'd it, they, alas!
Were punish'd by the silentness of thine,
And yet I did not venture to repine.
Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine,
Worshipp'd at holy distance, and around
Hallow'd and meekly kiss'd the saintly ground;
Not for thou wert a princess, but that Love
Hath robed thee with a glory, and array'd

Thy lineaments in beauty that dismay’d —
Oh! not dismay'd- but awed, like One above;
And in that sweet severity there was

A something which all softness did surpass

-

I know not how thy genius master'd mineMy star stood still before thee: — if it were

Presumptuous thus to love without design,
That sad fatality hath cost me dear;
But thou art dearest still, and I should be
Fit for this cell which wrongs me

but for thee.

The very love which lock'd me to my chain

Hath lighten'd half its weight; and for the rest,

Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain,

And look to thee with undivided breast,

And foil the ingenuity of Pain.

VI

It is no marvel; from my very birth

My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade

And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth.

"I loved all Solitude; but little thought
To spend I know not what of life, remote
From all communion with existence.

-Lament of Tasso, p. 25.