XLIII.

   This makes the madmen who have made men mad
   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;
   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,
   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
   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,
   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,
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? 
   There Harold gazes on a work divine,
   A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
   Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, corn-field, mountain, vine,
   And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From grey but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

XLVII.

   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,
   Banners on high, and battles passed 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,
   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 conquerors should have
   But History’s purchased page to call them great? 
   A wider space, an ornamented grave? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.