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XXXVIII.

Oh, more or less than man

-

- in high or low,

Battling with nations, flying from the field;
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,

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

XXXIX.

Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide
With that untaught innate philosophy,

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;

When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child, He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.

XL.

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them
Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show
That just habitual scorn which could contemn
Men and their thoughts; 'was 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;
So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.

XLI.

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,

Their admiration thy best weapon shone;
The part of Philipp's son was thine, not then
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown)
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men ;

For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. 9

XLII.

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;
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.

XLIII.

This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conqerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; 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:

XLIV.

Their breath is agitation, and their life A strom whereon they ride, to sink at last, 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 With its own flickering, or a sword laid by Which cats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

XLV.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

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,

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

XLVI.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be
Within its own creation, or in thine,
Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
There Harold gazes on a work divine,

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain,
vine,

And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenlyd wells.

XLVII.

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,
Or holding dark communion with the cloud.
There was a day when they were young and proud,
Banners on high, and battles pass'd below;

But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,
And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.

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