III.

   In my youth’s summer I did sing of One,
   The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
   Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
   And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
   Bears the cloud onwards:  in that tale I find
   The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
   Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,
   O’er which all heavily the journeying years
Plod the last sands of life—­where not a flower appears.

IV.

   Since my young days of passion—­joy, or pain,
   Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
   And both may jar:  it may be, that in vain
   I would essay as I have sung to sing. 
   Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling,
   So that it wean me from the weary dream
   Of selfish grief or gladness—­so it fling
   Forgetfulness around me—­it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V.

   He who, grown aged in this world of woe,
   In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
   So that no wonder waits him; nor below
   Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
   Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
   Of silent, sharp endurance:  he can tell
   Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
   With airy images, and shapes which dwell
Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul’s haunted cell.

VI.

   ’Tis to create, and in creating live
   A being more intense, that we endow
   With form our fancy, gaining as we give
   The life we image, even as I do now. 
   What am I?  Nothing:  but not so art thou,
   Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,
   Invisible but gazing, as I glow
   Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,
And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings’ dearth.

VII.

   Yet must I think less wildly:  I have thought
   Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
   In its own eddy boiling and o’erwrought,
   A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: 
   And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
   My springs of life were poisoned.  ’Tis too late! 
   Yet am I changed; though still enough the same
   In strength to bear what time cannot abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing fate.

VIII.

   Something too much of this:  but now ’tis past,
   And the spell closes with its silent seal. 
   Long-absent Harold reappears at last;
   He of the breast which fain no more would feel,
   Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne’er heal;
   Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him
   In soul and aspect as in age:  years steal
   Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;
And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.