Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,
With a pervading vision. - Beautiful!
How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns,

we,

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will,
Till our mortality predominates,
And men are what they name not to
themselves,

And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,
[The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard.
The natural music of the mountain reed
(For here the patriarchal days are not 310
A pastoral fable) pipes in the liberal air,
Mix'd with the sweet bells of the saunter-
ing herd;
My soul would drink those echoes. — Oh,
that I were

300

SCENE II

A lower Valley in the Alps. A Cataract.
Enter MANFRED.

It is not noon; the sunbow's rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven,
And roll the sheeted silver's waving column
O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along, 99
And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail,
The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the Apocalypse. No eyes
But mine now drink this sight of loveliness;
I should be sole in this sweet solitude,
And with the Spirit of the place divide
The homage of these waters. - I will call
her.

At times to commune with them
he
Avail him of his spells to call thee thus,
And gaze on thee a moment.
Witch.
Son of Earth!
I know thee, and the powers which give
thee power;

I know thee for a man of many thoughts,
And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,
Fatal and fated in thy sufferings.

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what wouldst thou

I have expected this with me? Man. To look upon thy beauty - nothing further.

The face of the earth hath madden'd me, and I

Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce To the abodes of those who govern her But they can nothing aid me. I have sought From them what they could not bestow, and

now

I search no further.

Witch. What could be the quest Which is not in the power of the most powerful,

The rulers of the invisible?

if that

140

Man. A boon; But why should I repeat it? 't were in vain. Witch. I know not that; let thy lips utter it. Man. Well, though it torture me, 't is but the same;

My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards

My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, Nor look'd upon the earth with human

eyes;

The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,

Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,

150

I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded

me

Was there but one who - but of her anon. I said, with men, and with the thoughts of

men,

I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top, Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing

Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge