Of mental wit, and readiness, and point,
And art, and flow of words, and confidence,
And vanity, and self-conceit inbred
From childhood, and supremacy of thought
Intense, historic, and political.
But in that contest the unrival'd Bard,
Whom every Muse enrich'd, yet paled his star,
And moody at the consciousness of light
Eclips'd, threw forth his fever'd frame aboard
Into the boat, and as the breezes blew
Growing into a storm, and the dark came,
And billows dash'd, he plied his beaten oars
Half in delight, and rose upon the wave,
Then sunk again into the water's depths,
In alternation, that half in delight,
Half in defiance, sometimes with a gloom
Of black despair, and sometimes with a laugh
Of scorn at fate, that buffeted his body
Thus, as his tempest-beaten heart,-arriv'd
Safe at his haunt once more, where Milton's spirit
Receiv'd him at the entrance; then fatigued,
Lap'd in deep slumbers long he lay, the Muse
Upon his bosom sitting, and with fondness
Pouring her balm on his tempestuous heart.
O sacred be those haunts, O beautiful Be every tint that on them soft and coolly Hovers! and be the air forever blest, And gardens, walks, and banks beheld with awe Mingled with love and fancy, and the swell Of bosom, that assures to higher being!
For six long months daily as I awoke,
And over the blue rippling waters saw
The white walls glittering on the morning sun,
My fond eyes with a sort of idol gaze
Dwelt on them, and my' uncalm imagination
Peopled them with a crew that ne'er on earth
In truth were habitants :-but so it is;
And in these wild delusions we are doom'd
To live and well it is, that we so live;
For life without it would be barren, dull,
And of a grossness unendurable.
It was not yet the time of ill,-foreboding
An early destiny to Byron's race:
He yet was in the most abundant bloom
Of his gigantic course, and pour'd along
The torrent of his strains with endless strength;
But four times had the sun his annual round
Perform'd, since he had left that fam'd abode;
And underneath Italian suns brought forth
New splendors, the amaz'd and awe-struck world
To dazzle, and half rapture, half dismay.
O vile Venetian luxury! O poison
Of cups Circæan! O the fall of mind,
That in the body's selfish pleasures fades!
But yet, O effluence indepressible
Of pure and spiritual imagination!
While wallowing in earthly vice, thy brain
Was the seat of all noble sentiment,
And visionary beauty and sublimity!
And thy heart with ideal love was touch'd,
Pure, and intense, and heavenly; and the while.
Could mingle pictures of a sensual world
Plung'd in dark earthly sins, and seem to gloat
With glee satanic on them, and to laugh.
With scorn triumphant on a fallen race!
Nor, less initiated in the practice,
Wast thou familiar with the foul ambition
In vicious luxury to be a leader!
Asham'd not, thy companions boon amid,
To be the first of worldlings! Ill it sorted
Thy most exalted genius to be thus
Rival of coarse and brutal ignorance;
Hardness of heart; of manners base; of birth
Ignoble, only by corrupt, depraving
Foul-got, and e'en perchance blood-colour'd wealth,
Gilded! But we may reason as we will,
Such was the union! The degrading vice
None can deny, and there existed also
The mind of heavenly breathing! To combine them
May be a swerve from nature's rules; but there
They were together found! How oft in that
Seat of departed commerce, where the tides
That all the streets transpierc'd, once wafted gold
In countless heaps, and arts and arms and glory
Together flourish'd, all by human toil,
And human ingenuity,—didst thou
Look back on Jura and the Alpine heights
Of rosy-tinted proud Mont-Blanc; and sigh
At nature's wonders, and the trembling Lake,
And its night-closing tempests; and the ride
Upon the tips of the white-foaming waves,
And Coppet's lights, and Coppet's blaze of mind!
Can thy waves once again, O Leman lov`d;
Strength to my body give--for I am weak,-
And my eyes fail me, and the opiate weight
Comes over me of deep forgetfulness,
And the rich page, which ought my mind to fill
With keenest interest, falls from my hand.
Thus in the day! but in the shades of night
Still by the lamp I watch, and ply my task
Week after week unwearied, and e'en month
Succeeding month. Then Midnight's silence calm
Befits the meditations of my brain;
For much the turmoil of society,
And much the talk of man, distracts my spirits:
And much it agitates my morbid breast.
There is a sharpness in thine air, that sometimes Pierces, and sometimes curdles up the blood, And stops the pores; and great the maladies Such interruptions cause; for on the free And even transit thro the tranquil veins Of the blest stream of life depends all health. Therefore the race that on thy banks has dwelt, Has ever somewhat irritable been,
And somewhat moody; and was that not ill
Suited to the capricious humours of
The chief of all thy mental luminaries?
yet he stood alone; nor ever yet
Did country more unlike its other habitants
Produce a human Being!-O Rousseau!
Thou wast the strangest, most intense, most beautiful,
Most eloquent, most passionate, acute,
Most fond, most selfish, most capricious, vain,
Most wilful, most vindictive, and most cross'd
With sudden unresisting yield to foul
Base wickedness, as thou thyself confessest,
That e'er combin'd in man's mysterious mould.
E'en at the very crise, when Satan sat
Triumphant on thy heart, the beams of Heaven
Were shining in it :-clouds, and sun, and thunder,
And lightning; and the intermingled rays
Of love, of beauty, raptures, and the charms
Of most celestial philanthropy !—
It was not art which aided thee; thou wast
The child of nature; not in Learning's tracks,
By method, toil, instruction, didst thou gain
Thy strength, or clearness, or concision, or
Order of words, or springs of nascent thought!
All was the gift of some inspiring Spirit,
Which visited thine infant eyes, and breath'd
Fire, strength, and tenderness, and th' fairest forms
Of most unearthly beauty, to thy heart!
E'en ere thy tottering steps could reach the banks
Of the deep-purpled waves, thou must have had
This wild delirium in thy wandring sight,
And fluttering, dancing, boiling on thy breast.
If thy weak fingers could have used the pen,
And language had been thine, to paint and fix,
Then in what brightness inconceivable
Thy visions had been set! The forms around thee,
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