It must be owned, however, that although the part of Almanzor contains these and other bombastic passages, there are many also which convey what the poet desired to represent—the aspirations of a mind so heroic as almost to surmount the bonds of society and even the very laws of the universe, leaving us often in doubt whether the vehemence of the wish does not even disguise the impossibility of its accomplishment.
Good heaven! thy book of fate before me lay,
But to tear out the journal of this day.
Or, if the order of the world below
Will not the gap of one whole day allow,
Give me that minute when she made her vow.
That minute, even the happy from their bliss might give,
And those, who live in grief, a shorter time would live.
So small a link, if broke, the eternal chain
Would, like divided waters, join again.