by Byron
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
LXXXIX
All heaven and earth are still – though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
835
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep: –
All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lull’d lake and mountain-coast,
All is concenter’d in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
840
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.
XC
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt
845
And purifies from self: it is a tone,
The soul and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,
Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone,
Binding all things with beauty; – ’twould disarm
850
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.
XCI
Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o’ergazing mountains,1 and thus take
A fit and unwall’d temple, there to seek
855
The Spirit in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear’d of human hands. Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature’s realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray’r!
XCII
860
Thy sky is changed! – and such a change! Oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
865
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
XCIII
And this is in the night: – Most glorious night!
870
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, –
A portion of the tempest and of thee!1
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
875
And now again ’tis black, – and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.
XCIV
Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted
880
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,
That they can meet no more, though brokenhearted!
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,
Love was the very root of the fond rage
Which blighted their life’s bloom, and then departed:
885
Itself expired, but leaving them an age
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage.
XCV
Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way,
The mightiest of the storms hath ta’en his stand:
For here, not one, but many, make their play,
890
And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand,
Flashing and cast around: of all the band,
The brightest through these parted hills hath fork’d
His lightnings, – as if he did understand,
That in such gaps as desolation work’d,
895
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk’d.
XCVI
Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye!
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt and feeling, well may be
Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
900
Of your departing voices, is the knoll
Of what in me is sleepless, – if I rest.
But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal?
Are ye like those within the human breast?
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?
XCVII
905
Could I embody and unbosom now
That which is most within me, – could I wreak
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,
All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
910
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into one word,
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;
But as it is, I live and die unheard,
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.
XCVIII
The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
915
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contain’d no tomb, —
And glowing into day: we may resume
The march of our existence: and thus I,
920
Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room
And food for meditation, nor pass by
Much, that may give us pause, if ponder’d fittingly.
XCIX
Clarens! sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love!
Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;
925
Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above
The very Glaciers have his colours caught,
And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought
By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,
The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought
930
In them a refuge from the worldly shocks,
Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks.
C
Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, –
Undying Love’s, who here ascends a throne
To which the steps are mountains; where the god
935
Is a pervading life and light, – so shown
Not on those summits solely, nor alone
In the still cave and forest; o’er the flower
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown,
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power
940
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.1
CI
All things are here of him; from the black pines,
Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar
Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines
Which slope his green path downward to the shore,
945
Where the bow’d waters meet him, and adore,
Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood,
The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar,
But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood,
Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.
CII
950
A populous solitude of bees and birds,
And fairy-formed and many-colour’d things,
Who worship him with notes more sweet than words,
And innocently open their glad wings,
Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs,
955
And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend
Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings
The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend,
Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end.
CIII
He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,
960
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
That tender mystery, will love the more,
For this is Love’s recess, where vain men’s woes,
And the world’s waste, have driven him far from those,
For ’tis his nature to advance or die;
965
He stands not still, but or decays, or grows
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With the immortal lights, in its eternity!
CIV
’Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,
Peopling it with affections; but he found
970
It was the scene which passion must allot
To the mind’s purified beings; ’twas the ground
Where early Love his Psyche’s zone unbound,
And hallow’d it with loveliness: ’tis lone,
And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,
975
And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone
Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear’d a throne.
CV
Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes
Of names which unto you bequeath’d a name;1
Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads,
980
A path to perpetuity of fame:
They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim
Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile
Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame
Of Heaven, again assail’d, if Heaven the while
985
On man and man’s research could deign do more than smile.
CVI
The one was fire and fickleness, a child,
Most mutable in wishes, but in mind,
A wit as various, – gay, grave, sage, or wild, –
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined;
990
He multiplied himself among mankind,
The Proteus of their talents: But his own
Breathed most in ridicule, – which, as the wind,
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone, –
Now to o’erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.
CVII
995
The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,
And hiving wisdom with each studious year,
In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;
1000
The lord of irony, – that master-spell,
Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear,
And doom’d him to the zealot’s ready Hell,
Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.
CVIII
Yet, peace be with their ashes, – for by them,
1005
If merited, the penalty is paid;
If it is not ours to judge, – far less condemn;
The hour must come when such things shall be made
Known unto all, – or hope and dread allay’d
By slumber, on one pillow, – in the dust,
1010
Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay’d;
And when it shall revive, as is our trust,
’Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.
CIX
But let me quit man’s works, again to read
His Maker’s, spread around me, and suspend
1015
This page, which from my reveries I feed,
Until it seems prolonging without end.
The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,
And I must pierce them, and survey whate’er
May be permitted, as my steps I bend
1020
To their most great and growing region, where
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.
CX
Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,
1025
To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
Who glorify thy consecrated pages;
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,
The fount at which the panting mind assuages
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
1030
Flows from the eternal source of Rome’s imperial hill.
CXI
Thus far have I proceeded in a theme
Renew’d with no kind auspices: – to feel
We are not what we have been, and to deem
We are not what we should be, – and to steel
1035
The heart against itself; and to conceal,
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, –
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal, –
Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul: – No matter, — it is taught.
CXII
1040
And for these words, thus woven into song,
It may be that they are a harmless wile, —
The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,
Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile
My breast, or that of others, for a while.
1045
Fame is the thirst of youth, – but I am not
So young as to regard men’s frown or smile,
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;
I stood and stand alone, – remember’d or forgot.
CXIII
I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
1050
I have not flatter’d its rank breath, nor bow’d
To its idolatries a patient knee, –
Nor coin’d my cheek to smiles, — nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
1055
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed1 my mind, which thus itself subdued.
CXIV
I have not loved the world, nor the world me, —
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
1060
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, – hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing: I would also deem
O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve;2
1065
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.
CXV
My daughter! with thy name this song begun –
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end –
I see thee not, – I hear thee not, – but none
1070
Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend
To whom the shadows of far years extend:
Albeit my brow thou never should’st behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend,
And reach into thy heart, – when mine is cold, —
1075
A token and a tone, even from thy father’s mould.
CXVI
To aid thy mind’s developement, – to watch
Thy dawn of little joys, – to sit and see
Almost thy very growth, – to view thee catch
; Knowledge of objects, – wonders yet to thee!
1080
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent’s kiss, —
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me;
Yet this was in my nature: — as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.
CXVII
1085
Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt love me; though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation, – and a broken claim:
Though the grave closed between us, – ’twere the same,
1090
I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
My blood from out thy being were an aim,
And an attainment, – all would be in vain, –
Still thou would’st love me, still that more than life retain.
CXVIII
The child of love, – though born in bitterness
1095
And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire
These were the elements, – and thine no less.
As yet such are around thee, – but thy fire
Shall be more temper’d, and thy hope far higher.
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O’er the sea,
1100
And from the mountains where I now respire,
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might’st have been to me!
Epistle to Augusta (‘My sister! my sweet sister!’&c.)
I
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
5
Go where I will, to me thou art the same –
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny, –
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
II
The first were nothing – had I still the last,
10
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
15
Reversed for him our grandsire’s1 fate of yore, –
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
III
If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen,
20
I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.
IV
25
Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.
