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54
Separated
“In the weather for this tour I have been very fortunate.
. . . . I was disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of
nature, &c. . . . But in all this the recollection of
bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home
desolation, which must accompany me through life, have
preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the
shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, the torrent, the
mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for
one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor
enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the
majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above,
and beneath me.”
Nichol's Life of Byron. (English Men of Letters
Series, p. 109.)
Alas! when thou wert near, I wished thee far;
But now thy distance is a jangling pain,
That all the harmony of life must mar;
All day I murmur, “Wilt thou come again?”
But now thy distance is a jangling pain,
That all the harmony of life must mar;
All day I murmur, “Wilt thou come again?”
Unless thou wilt return, I sing no more;
A hawk o'ertowers the song-bird of my heart;
Leagues have I drifted on toward the shore
Of mute remorse, since we were driven apart!
A hawk o'ertowers the song-bird of my heart;
Leagues have I drifted on toward the shore
Of mute remorse, since we were driven apart!
55
For though to sing is more to me than breath,—
If I might only sing one worthy song,—
Who sings beneath the basilisk eyes of death?
Or, worse than death, the hovering wings of wrong?
If I might only sing one worthy song,—
Who sings beneath the basilisk eyes of death?
Or, worse than death, the hovering wings of wrong?
They hover o'er me, like a brooding mist,
That blurs the mountains and the morning light,
And blemishes the clustered amethyst
Of pleasure's grapes, with grey mysterious blight.
That blurs the mountains and the morning light,
And blemishes the clustered amethyst
Of pleasure's grapes, with grey mysterious blight.
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