Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/287

CANTO 1.] For mine is not a nature to be bent

By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd,

And though the long, long conflict hath been spent

In vain,—and never more, save when the cloud

Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye

Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud

Of me, can I return, though but to die,

Unto my native soil,—they have not yet

Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern and high.

But the Sun, though not overcast, must set

And the night cometh; I am old in days,

And deeds, and contemplation, and have met

Destruction face to face in all his ways.

The World hath left me, what it found me, pure,

And if I have not gathered yet its praise,

I sought it not by any baser lure;

Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name

May form a monument not all obscure,

Though such was not my Ambition's end or aim,

To add to the vain-glorious list of those

Who dabble in the pettiness of fame,

And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows

Their sail, and deem it glory to be classed

With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes,

In bloody chronicles of ages past.

I would have had my Florence great and free;

Oh Florence! Florence! unto me thou wast