But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. XV. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? XVI. With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be : Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. XVII. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? XVIII. We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; [thought. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest XIX. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. XX. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! XXI. Teach me half the gladness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, My spirit is too deeply laden I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Thou needest not fear mine; ODE TO LIBERTY. Yet freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying, BYRON. I. A GLORIOUS people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty, From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dis may, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey; Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void, was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep; I will record the same. II. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth; Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. III. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, Hung tyranny; beneath, sate deified The sister-pest, congregator of slaves; Into the shadow of her pinions wide, Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody On the unapprchensive wild. The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, V. Athens arose a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision |