CVIII.

   Yet, peace be with their ashes,—­for by them,
   If merited, the penalty is paid;
   It is not ours to judge, far less condemn;
   The hour must come when such things shall be made
   Known unto all,—­or hope and dread allayed
   By slumber on one pillow, in the dust,
   Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed;
   And when it shall revive, as is our trust,
’Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

CIX.

   But let me quit man’s works, again to read
   His Maker’s spread around me, and suspend
   This page, which from my reveries I feed,
   Until it seems prolonging without end. 
   The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,
   And I must pierce them, and survey whate’er
   May be permitted, as my steps I bend
   To their most great and growing region, where
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

CX.

   Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee
   Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,
   Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,
   To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
   Who glorify thy consecrated pages;
   Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,
   The fount at which the panting mind assuages
   Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
Flows from the eternal source of Rome’s imperial hill.

CXI.

   Thus far have I proceeded in a theme
   Renewed with no kind auspices:  —­to feel
   We are not what we have been, and to deem
   We are not what we should be, and to steel
   The heart against itself; and to conceal,
   With a proud caution, love or hate, or aught, —
   Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal, —
   Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul:  —­No matter,—­it is taught.

CXII.

   And for these words, thus woven into song,
   It may be that they are a harmless wile, —
   The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,
   Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile
   My breast, or that of others, for a while. 
   Fame is the thirst of youth,—­but I am not
   So young as to regard men’s frown or smile
   As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;
I stood and stand alone,—­remembered or forgot.

CXIII.

   I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
   I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed
   To its idolatries a patient knee, —
   Nor coined my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud
   In worship of an echo; in the crowd
   They could not deem me one of such; I stood
   Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
   Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.