Childe Harold's Pilgrimage quotes

Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe,

Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.

My greatest grief is that I leave No thing that claims a tear.

Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.

A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.

See how the mighty shrink into a song!

Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret; The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet.

Love has no gift so grateful as his wings:

But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies;

What exile from himself can flee?

Smile on—nor venture to unmask Man's heart, and view the hell that's there.

Gone—glimmering through the dream of things that were:

'All that we know is, nothing can be known.'

This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys.

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

Welcome to their roar!

What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, Soul of my thought!

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Stop! for thy tread is on an empire's dust!

Arm! arm! it is—it is—the cannon's opening roar!

'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?

Thou wert not sent for slumber!

Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?

I stood and stand alone,—remembered or forgot.

The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted,—they have torn me, and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

The gods become as mortals, and man's fate Has moments like their brightest!

O Rome! my country! city of the soul!

A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, Even with its own desiring phantasy,

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow— Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

And I have loved thee, Ocean!