In chambers dim thou wilt have wrought,
With no one by, to cheer,
And trod the downward paths of thought,
In solitude and fear;
Nor till the weary day was o’er,
Into the air have fled
From thought which could delight no more,
From books whose power was dead;
What time perchance the drooping day
With burning vapour fills
The deep recesses far away
Of all the golden hills:
Or later, when the twilight blends
All hues, or when the moon
Into the ocean depths descends,
A wavering column, down.
Then hast not thou in spirit leapt,
Emerging from thy gloom,
Like one who unawares o’erstept
The barriers of a tomb.
And in thine exultation cried—
Of gladness having fill,
And in it being glorified—
“The world is beauteous still!”
TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL EXILES OF 1823.
[WRITTEN IN 1829.]
Wise are ye in a wisdom vainly sought
Thro’ all the records of the historic page;
It is not to be learned by lengthened age,
Scarce by deep musings of unaided thought:
By suffering and endurance ye have bought
A knowledge of the thousand links that bind
The highest with the lowest of our kind,
And how the indissoluble chain is wrought.
Ye fell by your own mercy once—beware,
When your lots leap again from fortune’s urn,
An heavier error—to be pardoned less.
Yours be it to the nations to declare
That years of pain and disappointment turn
Weak hearts to gall, but wise to gentleness.