Selected Poems (80 page)

The bars survive the captive they enthral;

The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:

XXXIII

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass

290

In every fragment multiplies; and makes

A thousand images of one that was,

The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;

And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,

Living in shatter’d guise, and still, and cold,

295

And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,

Yet withers on till all without is old,

Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.

XXXIV

There is a very life in our despair,

Vitality of poison, — a quick root

300

Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were

As nothing did we die; but Life will suit

Itself to Sorrow’s most detested fruit,

Like to the apples
¹
on the Dead Sea’s shore,

All ashes to the taste: Did man compute

305

Existence by enjoyment, and count o’er

Such hours ’gainst years of life, — say, would he name threescore?

xxxv

The Psalmist number’d out the years of man:

They are enough; and if thy tale be
true
,

Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span,

310

More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo!

Millions of tongues record thee, and anew

Their children’s lips shall echo them, and say –

‘Here, where the sword united nations drew,

Our countrymen were warring on that day!’

315

And this is much, and all which will not pass away.

XXXVI

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,

Whose spirit antithetically mixt

One moment of the mightiest, and again

On little objects with like firmness fixt,

320

Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,

Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;

For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek’st

Even now to re-assume the imperial mien,

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

XXXVII

325

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!

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 woo’d thee once, thy vassal, and became

330

The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert

A god unto thyself; nor less the same

To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Who deem’d thee for a time whate’er thou didst assert.

XXXVIII

Oh, more or less than man – in high or low,

335

Battling with nations, flying from the field;

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,

340

However deeply in men’s spirits skill’d,

Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,

Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

XXXIX

Yet well thy soul hath brook’d the turning tide

With that untaught innate philosophy,

345

Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,

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; –

350

When Fortune fled her spoil’d and favourite child,

He stood unbow’d beneath the ills upon him piled.

XL

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them

Ambition steel’d thee on too far to show

That just habitual scorn, which could contemn

355

Men and their thoughts; ’twas wise to feel, not so

To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use

Till they were turn’d unto thine overthrow;

’Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;

360

So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.

XLI

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock,

Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,

Such scorn of man had help’d to brave the shock;

But men’s thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne,

365

Their
admiration thy best weapon shone;

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.
¹

XLII

370

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,

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;

375

And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,

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.

XLIII

This makes the madmen who have made men mad

380

By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,

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;

385

Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings

Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school

Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule:

XLIV

Their breath is agitation, and their life

A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last,

390

And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife,

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

395

With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,

Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

XLV

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;

He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

400

Must look down on the hate of those below.

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,

405

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

XLVI

Away with these! true Wisdom’s world will be

Within its own creation, or in thine,

Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,

Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?

410

There Harold gazes on a work divine,

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,

Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain vine,

And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells

From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

XLVII

415

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,

Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,

All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,

Or holding dark communion with the cloud.

There was a day when they were young and proud,

420

Banners on high, and battles pass’d below;

But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,

And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,

And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.

XLVIII

Beneath these battlements, within those walls,

425

Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state

Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,

Doing his evil will, nor less elate

Than mightier heroes of a longer date.

What want these outlaws
¹
conquerors should have?

430

But History’s purchased page to call them great?