What sorrow strange, and shadowy, and unknown, Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind? If with a human sadness he did groan, He had a gentle yet aspiring mind; In others' joy, when all their own is dead. That from such toil he never found relief. His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower Pitying the tumult of their dark estate. Those false opinions which the harsh rich use But, like a steward in honest dealings tried 19 strange, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || deep, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise; What he dared do or think, though men might start, He spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes; Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart, If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell; And mortal hate their thousand voices rose, To those, or them, or any whom life's sphere He knew not. Though his life, day after day, Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene beam Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods; hour, Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes, Were driven within him by some secret power, Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar, Like lights and sounds from haunted tower to tower O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's war Is levied by the night-contending winds And the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear; Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends Which wake and feed on ever living woe,What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds A mirror found, he knew not none could know; He knew not of the grief within that burned, The cause of his disquietude; or shook To stir his secret pain without avail; For all who knew and loved him then perceived That there was drawn an adamantine veil Between his heart and mind,- both unrelieved Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife. Some said that he was mad; others believed That memories of an antenatal life From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell By mortal fear or supernatural awe; And others," "Tis the shadow of a dream "But through the soul's abyss, like some dark stream Through shattered mines and caverns underground, Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam "Of joy may rise but it is quenched and drowned In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure; Soon its exhausted waters will have found "A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure, So spake they - idly of another's state Men held with one another; nor did he, Another, not himself, he to and fro Questioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit, And none but those who loved him best could know That which he knew not, how it galled and bit Upon his being; a snake which fold by fold Which clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold; And so his grief remained - let it remain untold. PART II Prince Athanase had one beloved friend, An old, old man, with hair of silver white, And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend With his wise words, and eyes whose arrowy light Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds. He was the last whom superstition's blight Had spared in Greece the blight that cramps and blinds And in his olive bower at Enoe Had sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds A fertile island in the barren sea, One mariner who has survived his mates Many a drear month in a great ship — so he |