Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/51

Rh He, too, who yet had held untired

A spirit natural or inspired—

He, too, was struck, and day by day

Was withered on the stalk away.

Oh, God! it is a fearful thing

To see the human soul take wing

In any shape, in any mood:

I've seen it rushing forth in blood,

I've seen it on the breaking ocean

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,

I've seen the sick and ghastly bed

Of Sin delirious with its dread:

But these were horrors—this was woe

Unmixed with such—but sure and slow:

He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

So tearless, yet so tender—kind,

And grieved for those he left behind;

With all the while a cheek whose bloom

Was as a mockery of the tomb,

Whose tints as gently sunk away

As a departing rainbow's ray;

An eye of most transparent light,

That almost made the dungeon bright;