He who, grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him; nor below Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul's haunted cell. VI. 'Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now. What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth, Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth. VII. Yet must I think less wildly: I HAVE thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poisoned. 'Tis too late! Yet am I changed; though still enough the same In strength to bear what time cannot abate, And feed on bitter fruits without accusing fate. VIII. Something too much of this: but now 'tis past, And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long-absent Harold reappears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal; Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. IX. His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he filled again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deemed its spring perpetual; but in vain! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clanked not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene. X. Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind; And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand. XI.