| |
| TAKE one example, to our purpose quite. | |
| A man of rank, and of capacious soul, | |
| Who riches had, and fame, beyond desire; | |
| An heir of flattery, to titles born, | |
| And reputation, and luxurious life. | 5 |
| Yet, not content with ancestorial name, | |
| Or to be known because his fathers were, | |
| He on this height hereditary stood, | |
| And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart | |
| To take another step. Above him seemed | 10 |
| Alone the mount of song, the lofty seat | |
| Of canonisèd bards; and thitherward, | |
| By nature taught, and inward melody, | |
| In prime of youth he bent his eagle eye. | |
| No cost was spared. What books he wished, he read; | 15 |
| What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see, | |
| He saw. And first in rambling schoolboy days | |
| Britannia’s mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes, | |
| And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks, | |
| And maids, as dewdrops pure and fair, his soul | 20 |
| With grandeur filled, and melody and love. | |
| Then travel came, and took him where he wished. | |
| He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp; | |
| And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows; | |
| And mused on battle-fields, where valour fought | 25 |
| In other days; and mused on ruins grey | |
| With years; and drank from old and fabulous wells; | |
| And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked; | |
| And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave | |
| Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste. | 30 |
| The heavens and earth of every country saw. | |
| Where’er the old inspiring Genii dwelt, | |
| Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul, | |
| Thither he went, and meditated there. | |
| He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced. | 35 |
| As some vast river of unfailing source, | |
| Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, | |
| And opened new fountains in the human heart. | |
| Where fancy halted, weary in her flight, | |
| In other men, his, fresh as morning, rose, | 40 |
| And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home | |
| Where angels bashful looked. Others, though great, | |
| Beneath their argument seemed struggling whiles; | |
| He, from above descending, stooped to touch | |
| The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though | 45 |
| It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature’s self | |
| He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest | |
| At will with all her glorious majesty. | |
| He laid his hand upon “the Ocean’s mane,” | |
| And played familiar with his hoary locks; | 50 |
| Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines, | |
| And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend; | |
| And wove his garland of the lightning’s wing, | |
| In sportive twist, the lightning’s fiery wing, | |
| Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God, | 55 |
| Marching upon the storm in vengeance, seemed; | |
| Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sang | |
| His evening song beneath his feet, conversed. | |
| Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds, his sisters were; | |
| Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms, | 60 |
| His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce | |
| As equals deemed. All passions of all men, | |
| The wild and tame, the gentle and severe; | |
| All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane; | |
| All creeds, all seasons, Time, Eternity; | 65 |
| All that was hated, and all that was dear; | |
| All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man, | |
| He tossed about, as tempest, withered leaves; | |
| Then, smiling, looked upon the wreck he made. | |
| With terror now he froze the cowering blood, | 70 |
| And now dissolved the heart in tenderness: | |
| Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself; | |
| But back into his soul retired, alone, | |
| Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously | |
| On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet. | 75 |
| So Ocean from the plains his waves had late | |
| To desolation swept, retired in pride, | |
| Exulting in the glory of his might, | |
| And seemed to mock the ruin he had wrought. | |
| As some fierce comet of tremendous size, | 80 |
| To which the stars did reverence as it passed, | |
| So he, through learning and through fancy, took | |
| His flights sublime, and on the loftiest top | |
| Of Fame’s dread mountain sat; not soiled and worn, | |
| As if he from the earth had laboured up; | 85 |
| But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair | |
| He looked, which down from higher regions came, | |
| And perched it there to see what lay beneath…. | |
| |
| Great man! the nations gazed, and wondered much, | |
| And praised; and many called his evil good. | 90 |
| Wits wrote in favour of his wickedness; | |
| And kings to do him honour took delight. | |
| Thus, full of titles, flattery, honour, fame, | |
| Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full, | |
| He died—he died of what?—of wretchedness; | 95 |
| Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump | |
| Of fame, drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts | |
| That common millions might have quenched; then died | |
| Of thirst, because there was no more to drink. | |
| His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoyed, | 100 |
| Fell from his arms abhorred; his passions died; | |
| Died all but dreary, solitary pride; | |
| And all his sympathies in being died. | |
| As some ill-guided bark, well built and tall, | |
| Which angry tides cast out on a desert shore, | 105 |
| And then retiring, left it there to rot | |
| And moulder in the winds and rains of heaven; | |
| So he, cut from the sympathies of life, | |
| And cast ashore from pleasure’s boisterous surge, | |
| A wandering, weary, worn, and wretched thing, | 110 |
| A scorched, and desolate, and blasted soul, | |
| A gloomy wilderness of dying thought— | |
| Repined, and groaned, and withered from the earth. | |
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