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From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
THERE sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, | |
| Whose spirit antithetically mixed | |
| One moment of the mightiest, and again | |
| On little objects with like firmness fixed, | |
| Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, | 5 |
| Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; | |
| For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek’st | |
| Even now to reassume the imperial mien, | |
| And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene! | |
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| Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! | 10 |
| She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name | |
| Was ne’er more bruited in men’s minds than now | |
| That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, | |
| Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became | |
| The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert | 15 |
| A god unto thyself: nor less the same | |
| To the astounded kingdoms all inert, | |
| Who deemed thee for a time whate’er thou didst assert. | |
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| O more or less than man—in high or low, | |
| Battling with nations, flying from the field; | 20 |
| 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 skilled, | 25 |
| Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, | |
| Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. | |
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| Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide | |
| With that untaught innate philosophy, | |
| Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, | 30 |
| 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 spoiled and favorite child, | 35 |
| He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled. | |
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| Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them | |
| Ambition steeled thee on too far to show | |
| That just habitual scorn which could contemn | |
| Men and their thoughts; ’t was wise to feel, not so | 40 |
| To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, | |
| And spurn the instruments thou wert to use | |
| Till they were turned unto thine overthrow; | |
| ’T is but a worthless world to win or lose; | |
| So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. | 45 |
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| If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, | |
| Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, | |
| Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock; | |
| But men’s thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, | |
| Their admiration thy best weapon shone; | 50 |
| The part of Philip’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. | |
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| But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, | 55 |
| 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, | 60 |
| 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. | |
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| This makes the madmen who have made men mad | |
| By their contagion! Conquerors and Kings, | 65 |
| 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 | 70 |
| Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school | |
| Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule. | |
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| Their breath is agitation, and their life | |
| A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, | |
| And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. | |
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| 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. | 85 |
| 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. | 90 |
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