Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/441

CANTO IV.] XCIII.

What from this barren being do we reap?

Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,

Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,

And all things weighed in Custom's falsest scale;

Opinion an Omnipotence,—whose veil

Mantles the earth with darkness, until right

And wrong are accidents, and Men grow pale

Lest their own judgments should become too bright,

And their free thoughts be crimes, and Earth have too much light.

XCIV.

And thus they plod in sluggish misery,

Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,