Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/565

Rh Which, when it least appeared to melt,

Intensely thought—intensely felt:

The deepest ice which ever froze

Can only o'er the surface close;

The living stream lies quick below,

And flows, and cannot cease to flow.

Still was his sealed-up bosom haunted

By thoughts which Nature hath implanted;

Too deeply rooted thence to vanish,

Howe'er our stifled tears we banish;

When struggling as they rise to start,

We check those waters of the heart,

They are not dried—those tears unshed

But flow back to the fountain head,

And resting in their spring more pure,

For ever in its depth endure,

Unseen—unwept—but uncongealed,

And cherished most where least revealed.

With inward starts of feeling left,

To throb o'er those of life bereft,

Without the power to fill again

The desert gap which made his pain;

Without the hope to meet them where

United souls shall gladness share;

With all the consciousness that he

Had only passed a just decree;

That they had wrought their doom of ill;

Yet Azo's age was wretched still.

The tainted branches of the tree,

If lopped with care, a strength may give,