Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break

To separate contemplation, the great whole;

And as the ocean many bays will make,

That ask the eye—so here condense thy soul

To more immediate objects, and control

Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart

Its eloquent proportions, and unroll

In mighty graduations, part by part,

The glory which at once upon thee did not dart.

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:

My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,

And my frame perish even in conquering pain,

But there is that within me which shall tire

Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire:

Something unearthly, which they deem not of,

Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,

Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move

In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love

Few—none—find what they love or could have loved:

Though accident, blind contact, and the strong

Necessity of loving, have removed

Antipathies—but to recur, ere long,

Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;

And Circumstance, that unspiritual god

And miscreator, makes and helps along

Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,

Whose touch turns hope to dust—the dust we all have trod.

Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure

Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds

Which robed our idols, and we see too sure

Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's

Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds

The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,

Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;

The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,

Seems ever near the prize—wealthiest when most undone.

Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure

Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds

Which robed our idols, and we see too sure

Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's

Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds

The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,

Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;

The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,

Seems ever near the prize—wealthiest when most undone.

Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel;

un;
A sister whom he loved, but saw her not

Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel;

Alas! our young affections run to waste,

Or water but the desert: whence arise

But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,

Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,

Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,

And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants

Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies

O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants

For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome!

And even since, and now, fair Italy!

Thou art the garden of the world, the home

Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;

Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste

More rich than other climes' fertility;

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced

With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.