XXXV.

The Psalmist numbered out the years of man: 1
They are enough; and if thy tale 2 be true,

Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span,

And this is much, and all which will not pass away.

315

XXXVI.

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,3
Whose spirit, antithetically mixed,

One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixed;
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,

320

Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;

For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st

Even now to reassume the imperial mien,

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

XXXVII.

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!

She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name

Was ne'er more bruited 4 in men's minds than now

That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert

325

330

1 "The days of our years are threescore years and ten" (Ps. xc. 10).

2 "Tale" means what?

3 Stanzas XXXVI.-XLI. give Byron's ideas of Napoleon.

4 Reported. Thou art no less than fame hath bruited" (I. Henry VI., ii. i.).

A god unto thyself; nor less the same

To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.

XXXVIII.

Oh, more or less than man-in high or low,
Battling with nations, flying from the field;
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;

335

An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
However deeply in men's spirits skilled,

340

Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

XXXIX.

Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide
With that untaught innate philosophy,

Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,

345

Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.

When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,

To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled
With a sedate and all-enduring eye; -

Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so 1 Byron admired fortitude.

355

To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use
Till they were turned unto thine overthrow :
'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;

So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.

XLI.

If, like a tower upon a headland rock,1

Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,

Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock;

360

But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne,
Their admiration thy best weapon shone;

The part of Philip's son was thine, not then
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown)

Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;

For sceptered cynics earth were far too wide a den.2

XLII.3

365

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,

370

And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire

And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,

Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.

1 Steep.

375

2 "The great error of Napoleon," says Byron, was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them." Diogenes, in his tub, may mock at men, but Alexander, if he wishes to rule the world, cannot afford to be a cynic.

3 This and the two following stanzas form an interesting poetical study of ambition, a passion to which Byron himself was not a stranger. The lines are strong and suggestive.

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.1

380

385

390

395

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.

400

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.

405

1 Point out the fallacy in this stanza.

XLVI.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be
Within its own creation, or in thine,

Maternal Nature!1 for who teems like thee,
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? 2
There Harold gazes on a work divine,

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,

Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells

From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.3

XLVII.

410

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,4
Or holding dark communion with the crowd.

415

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,

420

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 armèd halls,

Doing his evil will, nor less elate

425

1 "The transition from the subject of Napoleon to that of the Rhine is made by contrasting ambition with the love of nature (TOZER).

2 What literature pertaining to the Rhine have you read?

3 Observe the force and beauty of the last four lines.

4 Blowing through crannies. Recall Tennyson's Flower in the Cran

nied Wall.