If, like a tower upon a headland rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, THEIR admiration thy best weapon shone; The part of Philip's son was thine, not then (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes to mock at men; For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. XLII. But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And THERE hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the soul, which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. XLIII. This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion! Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule: XLIV. Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. XLV. He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high ABOVE the sun of glory glow, And far BENEATH the earth and ocean spread, ROUND him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. XLVI. Away with these; true Wisdom's world will be Within its own creation, or in thine, Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee, Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? There Harold gazes on a work divine, A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, corn-field, mountain, vine, And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells From grey but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. XLVII.