To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, This is not solitude; 't is but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, NATURE THE CONSOLER. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iii. Stanzas 13-15.) WHERE rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, Could he have kept his spirit to that flight To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink. But in Man's dwellings he became a thing THE SAME. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iii. Stanzas 71-75.) Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake? A fair but froward infant her own care, Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear? I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life; Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, Though young, yet waxing vigorous, as the blast Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling. And when, at length, the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form, Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm? Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot? Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Is not the love of these deep in my heart Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow? THE POET AND THE WORLD. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iii. Stanzas 113, 114.) I HAVE not loved the world, nor the world me; 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 Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. I have not loved the world, nor the world me, But let us part fair foes; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be Words v nich are things, hopes which will not de ceive, And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing: I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; That two, or one, are almost what they seem, That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. BEREAVEMENT. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto ii. Stanza 98.) WHAT is the worst of woes that wait on age? LAST LEAVING ENGLAND. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iii. Stanzas 1, 2.) Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child! |