Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.
38
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; lowest 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.
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39
,
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 unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.
40
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.4
41
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 admiration thy best weapon shone; The part of Philip's son5 was thine, not then (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes6 to mock at men;
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.
4. An inversion: 'all who choose such lot' (i.e., porary of Alexander. It is related that Alexander who choose to play such a game of chance). was so struck by his independence of mind that he 5. Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon. said, 'If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be 6. The Greek philosopher of Cynicism, contem-Diogenes.'
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CHILD E HAROLD' S PILGRIMAGE , CANT O 1 / 62 7 4 2 370 But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire 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. 43 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,7 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: 44 Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, 390 And yet so nurs'd and bigotted 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. 45 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 above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, 405 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.8 $ * $ 52 460 Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, Yet not insensibly to all which here
7. Learned men. But the term often carries a 8. In the stanzas here omitted, Harold is sent sail- derogatory sense?thinkers with a penchant for ing up the Rhine, meditating on the 'thousand bat-
tricky reasoning. tles' that 'have assailed thy banks.'
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628 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . ?-?'
Awoke the jocund birds to early song In glens which might have made even exile dear: Though on his brow were graven lines austere,
465 And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place Of feelings fierier far but less severe, Joy was not always absent from his face,
But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.
53
Nor was all love shut from him, though his days
470 Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath wean'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt,
