Then feel within our narrow sphere
How little yet how great we are! 
But they might shine in courtly glare, 90
Attract the rabble’s cheapest stare,
And might command where’er they move
A thing that bears the name of love;
They might be learned, witty, gay,
Foremost in fashion’s gilt array, 95
On Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,
Be princes’ friends, but never mine!

Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,
Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,
Whence I would watch its lustre pale 100
Steal from the moon o’er yonder vale
Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast,
Bared to the stream’s unceasing flow,
Ever its giant shade doth cast
On the tumultuous surge below:  105

Woods, to whose depths retires to die
The wounded Echo’s melody,
And whither this lone spirit bent
The footstep of a wild intent: 

Meadows! whose green and spangled breast 110
These fevered limbs have often pressed,
Until the watchful fiend Despair
Slept in the soothing coolness there! 
Have not your varied beauties seen
The sunken eye, the withering mien, 115
Sad traces of the unuttered pain
That froze my heart and burned my brain. 
How changed since Nature’s summer form
Had last the power my grief to charm,
Since last ye soothed my spirit’s sadness, 120
Strange chaos of a mingled madness! 
Changed!—­not the loathsome worm that fed
In the dark mansions of the dead,
Now soaring through the fields of air,
And gathering purest nectar there, 125
A butterfly, whose million hues
The dazzled eye of wonder views,
Long lingering on a work so strange,
Has undergone so bright a change. 
How do I feel my happiness? 130
I cannot tell, but they may guess
Whose every gloomy feeling gone,
Friendship and passion feel alone;
Who see mortality’s dull clouds
Before affection’s murmur fly, 135
Whilst the mild glances of her eye
Pierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds
The spirit’s inmost sanctuary. 
O thou! whose virtues latest known,
First in this heart yet claim’st a throne; 140
Whose downy sceptre still shall share
The gentle sway with virtue there;
Thou fair in form, and pure in mind,
Whose ardent friendship rivets fast
The flowery band our fates that bind, 145
Which incorruptible shall last
When duty’s hard and cold control
Has thawed around the burning soul,—­
The gloomiest retrospects that bind
With crowns of thorn the bleeding mind, 150
The prospects of most doubtful hue
That rise on Fancy’s shuddering view,—­
Are gilt by the reviving ray
Which thou hast flung upon my day.