II. Once more upon the waters!1 yet once more! Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. III. In my youth's summer I did sing of One,2 The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Plod the last sands of life,-where not a flower appears. IV. Since my young days of passion-joy, or pain, ΙΟ 15 20 25 when her father saw her for the last time. On January 5, 1816, he wrote to the poet Tom Moore: "She was and is very flourishing and fat, and reckoned very large for her days,-squalls and sucks incessantly." Byron's daughter married the earl of Lovelace in 1835, and died in 1852. 1 Byron left England, April 25, 1816, never to return. He made his first foreign tour in 1809-1810. 2 Childe Harold. And both may jar: it may be, that in vain Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling; To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. V. He who, grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years,1 piercing the depths of life, Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, 40 Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul's haunted cell. 45 VI. 'Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now.2 What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, 50 Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth, Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth. 1 "We live in deeds, not years" (BAILEY'S Festus). 2 The poet finds refuge from the troubles of life in the exercise of literary imagination. Longfellow sings of "the rapture of creating." Byron's ideal, the "soul of his thought," was superior to his actual self. VII. Yet must I think less wildly:-I have thought And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, VIII. Something too much of this:2—but now 'tis past, Long-absent HAROLD reappears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel, 55 бо 65 Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal; In soul and aspect as in age: years steal 70 Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. IX. His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he filled again, 75 1 This refers bitterly to the author's neglected childhood. He blames circumstances. 2 See Hamlet, iii. ii. 3 What "fount" on what "holier ground"? Seek the answer in the stanzas following. The first sixteen stanzas are introductory and largely egotistical. Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled forever, fettering though unseen, And heavy, though it clanked 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 mixed He found in wonder works of God and Nature's hand. XI. But who can view the ripened rose, nor seek To wear it? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen1 of beauty's cheek, grow old? Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold Harold, once more within the vortex, rolled On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond 3 prime. XII. But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held 1 Look up the word "sheen" in your dictionary. spears was like stars on the sea (BYRON). 2 Altogether. 3 Foolish. 80 85 00 95 100 "The sheen on their Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompelled, He would not yield dominion of his mind 105 To spirits against whom his own rebelled; Proud though in desolation; which could find A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. XIII. Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake XIV. Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, Could he have kept his spirit to that flight, Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link I 10 115 120 125 That keeps us from yon heaven which wooes us to its brink.1 XV. But in Man's dwellings he became a thing 1 See Prisoner of Chillon, line 216. |