So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught;
They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown'd,
Deserted me, and hurl'd me to the ground.
1823.
III. ATONEMENT.
[Composed, when 74 years old, for a Polish lady, who excelled in playing on the pianoforte.]
PASSION brings reason—who can pacify
An anguish'd heart whose loss hath been so great?
Where are the hours that fled so swiftly by?
In vain the fairest thou didst gain from fate;
Sad is the soul, confused the enterprise;
The glorious world, how on the sense it dies!
In million tones entwined for evermore,
Music with angel-pinions hovers there,
To pierce man's being to its inmost core,