Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire - in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?
Tis an old lesson; time approves it true, And those who know it best, deplore it most; When all is won that all desire to woo, The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost.
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.
I think the worst woman that ever existed would have made a man of very passable reputation -- they are all better than us and their faults such as they are must originate with ourselves.
She was like me in lineaments-- her eyes Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty; She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears-- which I had not; And tenderness-- but that I had for her; Humility-- and that I never had. Her faults were mine-- her virtues were her own-- I loved her, and destroy'd her!
But every fool describes, in these bright days, His wondrous journey to some foreign court, And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,-- Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.
To what gulfs A single deviation from the track Of human duties leads even those who claim The homage of mankind as their born due, And find it, till they forfeit it themselves!