"Afin que cette application vous forcât de penser à autre chose; il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui-là et le temps." Lettre du Roi de Prusse à D'Alembert, Septembre 7, 1776. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO THE THIRD. I. Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child! But with a hope. Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me; and on high The winds lift up their voices: I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye. II. Once more upon the waters! yet once more! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. 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, V. He, who grown aged in this world of woe, Still unimpair'd, 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 What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth. VII. Yet must I think less wildly :-I have thought VIII. Something too much of this:-but now 't is past, Long absent HAROLD re-appears 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 alter'd 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. IX. His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he fill'd again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deem'd its spring perpetual; but in vain! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene. X. Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand. XI. But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. |