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MANFRED: From my youth upwards
- My Spirit walked not with the souls of men,
- Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes;
- The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
- The aim of their existence was not mine;
- My joys—my griefs—my passions—and my powers,
- Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
- I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,
- Nor midst the Creatures of Clay that girded me
- Was there but One who—but of her anon.
- I said with men, and with the thoughts of men,
- I held but slight communion; but instead,
- My joy was in the wilderness—to breathe
- The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,
- Where the birds dare not build—nor insect's wing
- Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge
- Into the torrent, and to roll along
- On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave
- Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow.
- In these my early strength exulted; or
- To follow through the night the moving moon,
- The stars and their development; or catch
- The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim;
- Or to look, list'ning, on the scattered leaves,
- While Autumn winds were at their evening song.
- These were my pastimes, and to be alone;
- For if the beings, of whom I was one—
- Hating to be so—crossed me in my path,
- I felt myself degraded back to them,
- And was all clay again. And then I dived,
- In my lone wanderings, to the caves of Death,
- Searching its cause in its effect; and drew
- From withered bones, and skulls, and heaped up dust
- Conclusions most forbidden. Then I passed—
- The nights of years in sciences untaught,
- Save in the old-time; and with time and toil,
- And terrible ordeal, and such penance
- As in itself hath power upon the air,
- And spirits that do compass air and earth,
- Space, and the peopled Infinite, I made
- Mine eyes familiar with Eternity,
- Such as, before me, did the Magi, and
- He who from out their fountain-dwellings raised
- Eros and Anteros, at Gadara,
- As I do thee;—and with my knowledge grew
- The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy
- Of this most bright intelligence, until——
- Oh! I but thus prolonged my words,
- Boasting these idle attributes, because
- As I approach the core of my heart's grief—
- But—to my task. I have not named to thee
- Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being,
- With whom I wore the chain of human ties;
- If I had such, they seemed not such to me—
- Yet there was One——
- 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 softened all, and tempered 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 destroyed her!
- Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart;
- It gazed on mine, and withered. I have shed
- Blood, but not hers—and yet her blood was shed;
- I saw—and could not stanch it.
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