Ambition lent it a new tone—­
  I had no being—­but in thee: 
  The world, and all it did contain
  In the earth—­the air—­the sea—­
  Its joy—­its little lot of pain
  That was new pleasure—­the ideal,
  Dim, vanities of dreams by night—­
  And dimmer nothings which were real—­
  (Shadows—­and a more shadowy light!)
  Parted upon their misty wings,
  And, so, confusedly, became
  Thine image and—­a name—­a name! 
  Two separate—­yet most intimate things.

  I was ambitious—­have you known
  The passion, father?  You have not: 
  A cottager, I marked a throne
  Of half the world as all my own,
  And murmured at such lowly lot—­
  But, just like any other dream,
  Upon the vapor of the dew
  My own had past, did not the beam
  Of beauty which did while it thro’
  The minute—­the hour—­the day—­oppress
  My mind with double loveliness.

  We walked together on the crown
  Of a high mountain which looked down
  Afar from its proud natural towers
  Of rock and forest, on the hills—­
  The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
  And shouting with a thousand rills.

  I spoke to her of power and pride,
  But mystically—­in such guise
  That she might deem it nought beside
  The moment’s converse; in her eyes
  I read, perhaps too carelessly—­
  A mingled feeling with my own—­
  The flush on her bright cheek, to me
  Seemed to become a queenly throne
  Too well that I should let it be
  Light in the wilderness alone.

  I wrapped myself in grandeur then,
  And donned a visionary crown—­
  Yet it was not that Fantasy
  Had thrown her mantle over me—­
  But that, among the rabble—­men,
  Lion ambition is chained down—­
  And crouches to a keeper’s hand—­
  Not so in deserts where the grand—­
  The wild—­the terrible conspire
  With their own breath to fan his fire.

  Look ’round thee now on Samarcand!—­
  Is she not queen of Earth? her pride
  Above all cities? in her hand
  Their destinies? in all beside
  Of glory which the world hath known
  Stands she not nobly and alone? 
  Falling—­her veriest stepping-stone
  Shall form the pedestal of a throne—­
  And who her sovereign?  Timour—­he
  Whom the astonished people saw
  Striding o’er empires haughtily
  A diademed outlaw!

  O, human love! thou spirit given,
  On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! 
  Which fall’st into the soul like rain
  Upon the Siroc-withered plain,
  And, failing in thy power to bless,
  But leav’st the heart a wilderness! 
  Idea! which bindest life around
  With music of so strange a sound
  And beauty of so wild a birth—­
  Farewell! for I have won the Earth.