that flight,
   He had been happy; but this clay will sink
   Its spark immortal, envying it the light
   To which it mounts, as if to break the link
That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.

XV.

   But in Man’s dwellings he became a thing
   Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome,
   Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing,
   To whom the boundless air alone were home: 
   Then came his fit again, which to o’ercome,
   As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat
   His breast and beak against his wiry dome
   Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

XVI.

   Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,
   With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom;
   The very knowledge that he lived in vain,
   That all was over on this side the tomb,
   Had made Despair a smilingness assume,
   Which, though ’twere wild—­as on the plundered wreck
   When mariners would madly meet their doom
   With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck —
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.

XVII.

   Stop! for thy tread is on an empire’s dust! 
   An earthquake’s spoil is sepulchred below! 
   Is the spot marked with no colossal bust? 
   Nor column trophied for triumphal show? 
   None; but the moral’s truth tells simpler so,
   As the ground was before, thus let it be; —
   How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! 
   And is this all the world has gained by thee,
Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory?

XVIII.

   And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,
   The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo! 
   How in an hour the power which gave annuls
   Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too! 
   In ‘pride of place’ here last the eagle flew,
   Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,
   Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through: 
   Ambition’s life and labours all were vain;
He wears the shattered links of the world’s broken chain.

XIX.

   Fit retribution!  Gaul may champ the bit,
   And foam in fetters, but is Earth more free? 
   Did nations combat to make one submit;
   Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? 
   What! shall reviving thraldom again be
   The patched-up idol of enlightened days? 
   Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we
   Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze
And servile knees to thrones?  No; prove before ye praise!

XX.