Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thy eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world, - with kings, The powerful of the earth, -the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, - the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods, -rivers that Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall, The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul: Behold through each lack-lustre, The gay recess of Wisdom and of And Passion's host, that never brooked control: Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit? Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee, And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore; How sweet it were in concert to adore With those who made our mortal labors light! To hear each voice we feared to hear no more! Behold each mighty shade revealed to sight, The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! BYRON: Childe Harold. THE IMMORTAL MIND. WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? Eternal, boundless, undecayed, A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth, or skies displayed, Shall it survey, shall it recall: Each fainter trace that memory holds, |