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Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry
Of minds and bodies in captivity.
And hark! the lash and the increasing howl,
And the half-inarticulate blasphemy!

There be some here with worse than phrensy 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 tyrants 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 ev'n 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 wreth 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 flushes 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 mine-
My 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 pervad
And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth;
Of objects all inanimate I made

Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers,
And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise,
Where I did lay me down within the shade
Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours,
Though I was chid for wandering; and the wise
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said
Of such materials wretched men were made,
And such a truant boy would end in wo,
And that the only lesson was a blow;
And then they smote me, and I did not weep,
But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt
Return'd and wept alone, and dream'd again
The visions which arise without a sleep.
And with my years my soul began to pant
With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain;
And the whole heart exhaled into One Want,
But undefined and wandering, till the day

I found the thing I sought, and that was thee;
And then I lost my being all to be
Absorb'd in thine-the world was past away-
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me!

VII.

I loved all solitude- but little thought
To spend I know not what of life, remote
From all communion with existence, save
The maniac and his tyrant; had I been
Their fellow, many years ere this had seen
My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave,
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave?
Perchance in such a cell we suffer more
Than the wreck'd sailor on his desert shore;
The world is all before him-mine is here,
Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier.
What though he perish, he may lift his eye
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky-
I will not raise my own in such reproof,
Although 't is clouded by my dungeon roof.

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Yet do I feel at times my mind decline,
But with a sense of its decay :-1 sem
Unwonted lights along my prison shine,
And a strange demon, who is vexing me
With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below
The feeling of the healthful and the free:
But much to One, who long hath suffer'd so,
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place,
And all that may be borne, or can debase.
I thought mine enemies had been but man,
But spirits may be leagued with them-all Earth
Abandons-Heaven forgets me ;-in the dearth
Of such defence the Powers of Evil can,
It may be, tempt me further, and prevail
Against the outworn creature they assail
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved
Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved?

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Beca ise I loved what not to love, and see, Was more or less than mortal, and than ine.

I one was quick in feeling-that is o'er ;-
My scars are callous, or I should have dash'd
My brain against these bars as the sun flash'd
In mockery through them ;-if I bear and bore
The much I have recounted, and the more
Which hath no words, 't is that I would not die
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie
Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame
Stamp madness deep into my memory,
And woo compassion to a blighted name,
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.
No-it shall be immortal!-and I make
A future temple of my present cell,
Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.
While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell
The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down,
And crumbling piecemeal view thy heartless halls,
A poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,

POEMS.

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Oh Lady! when I left the shore,
The distant shore, which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth:
Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting Nature droops the head,
Where only thou art seen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread.
Though far from Albin's craggy shore,
Divided by the dark-blue main
A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er,
Perchance I view her cliffs again:
But wheresoe'er I now may roam,
Through scorching clime, and varied sea,"
Though Time restore me to my home,

I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee: On thee, in whom at once conspire

All charms which heedless hearts can move, Whon but to see is to admire,

And, oh! forgive the word-to love. Forgive the word, in one who ne'er

With such a word can more offend; And since thy heart I cannot share, Believe me, what I am, thy friend. And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less?

Nor be, what man should ever be,
The friend of Beauty in distress?
Ah! who would think that form had past
Through Danger's most destructive path,
Hath braved the Death-wing'd tempest's blast,
And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath?
Lady! when I shall view the walls

Where free Byzantium once arose ;
And Stamboul's Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;
Thou mightiest in the lists of fame,
That glorious city still shall be;
On me 't will hold a dearer claim,
As spots of thy nativity:
And though I bid thee now farewell,

When I behold that wond'rous scene,
Since where thou art I may not dwell,
'T will sooth to be, where thou hast been.
September, 1809,

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.

NOVEMBER 14, 1809.
1.

Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,
Full beams the moon on Actium's coast
And on these waves, for Egypt's queen,
The ancient world was won and lost.
2.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman;
Where stern Ambition once forsook

His wavering crown to follow woman.
3.

Florence! whom I will love as well

As ever yet was said or sung, (Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell) Whilst thou art fair and I am young;

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