With more capacity for love than earth
Bestows on most of mortal mould and birth,
His early dreams of good outstripp'd the truth,
And troubled manhood follow'd baffled youth;
With thought of years in phantom chase mispent, 325
And wasted powers for better purpose lent;
And fiery passions that had pour'd their wrath
In hurried desolation o'er his path,
And left the better feelings all at strife
In wild reflection o'er his stormy life;

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But haughty still, and loth himself to blame,
He call’d on Nature's self to share the shame,
And charged all faults upon the fleshly form
She gave to clog the soul, and feast the worm;
Till he at last confounded good and ill,

335 And half mistook for fate the acts of will: Too high for common selfishness, he could At times resign his own for others' good, But not in pity, not because he ought, But in some strange perversity of thought, 340 That sway'd him onward with a secret pride To do what few or none would do beside ; And this same impulse would, in tempting time, Mislead his spirit equally to crime; So much he soar'd beyond, or sunk beneath 345 The men with whom he felt condemn'd to breathe, And long'd by good or ill to separate Himself from all who shared his mortal state;

His mind abhorring this had fix'd her throne
Far from the world, in regions of her own : 350
Thus coldly passing all that pass'd below,
His blood in temperate seeming now would flow :
Ah! happier if it ne'er with guilt had glow'd,
But ever in that icy smoothness flow'd !
'Tis true, with other men their path he walk’d, 355
And like the rest in seeming did and talk'd,
Nor outraged Reason's rules by flaw nor start,
His madness was not of the head but heart;
And rarely wanderd in his speech, or drew
His thoughts so forth as to offend the view. 360

XIX. With all that chilling mystery of mein, And seeming gladness to remain unseen; He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art Of fixing memory on another's heart: It was not love perchance-nor hate-nor aught 365 That words can image to express the thought; But they who saw him did not see in vain, And once beheld, would ask of him again : And those to whom he spake remember'd well, And on the words, however light, would dwell: 370 None knew, nor how, nor why, but he entwined Himself perforce around the hearer's mind; There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate, If greeted once; however brief the date

375

That friendship, pity, or aversion knew,
Still there within the inmost thought he grew.
You could not penetrate his soul, but found,
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound;
His presence haunted still; and from the breast
He forced an all unwilling interest:
Vain was the struggle in that mental net,
His spirit seem'd to dare you to forget!

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XX.

385

There is a festival, where knights and dames,
And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims
Appear-a highborn and a welcome guest
To Otho's hall came Lara with the rest.
The long carousal shakes the illumined hall,
Well speeds alike the banquet and the ball;
And the gay dance of bounding Beauty's train
Links grace and harmony in happiest chain :
Blest are the early hearts and gentle hands
That mingle there in well according bands;
It is a sight the careful brow might smooth,
And make Age smile, and dream itself to youth,
And Youth forget such hour was past on earth,
So springs the exulting bosom to that mirth!

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395

XXI.
And Lara gazed on these, sedately glad,
His brow belied him if his soul was sad;

j

WITH FOLDED ARMS AND LONG ATTENTIVE EYE, NOR MARK'D A GLANCE SO STERNLY FIXD ON HIS.