Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/389

CANTO IV.] XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace

Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,

But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface

The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,

Which out of things familiar, undesigned,

When least we deem of such, calls up to view

The Spectres whom no exorcism can bind,—

The cold—the changed—perchance the dead, anew—

The mourned—the loved—the lost—too many! yet how few!

XXV.

But my Soul wanders; I demand it back

To meditate amongst decay, and stand

A ruin amidst ruins; there to track

Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land

Which was the mightiest in its old command,

And is the loveliest, and must ever be

The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand;

Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,—

The beautiful—the brave—the Lords of earth and sea,