'Blue rolls the water, blue the sky Spreads like an ocean hung on high, Bespangled with those isles of light, So wildly, spiritually bright; Who ever gazed upon them shining Nor turned to earth without repining, Nor wished for wings to flee away, And mix with their eternal ray?'
'Oh, thou beautiful And unimaginable ether! and Ye multiplying masses of increased And still increasing lights! what are ye? What Is this blue wilderness of interminable Air, wherein ye roll along as I have seen The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden?
Is your course measured for ye? or do ye Sweep on in your unbounded revelry Through an aerial universe of endless Expansion, at which my soul aches to think-- Intoxicated with eternity?'
'All heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep, And breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep;-- All heaven and earth are still: from the high host Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain coast, All is concentred in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defence.
'Then stirs the _feeling infinite_, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt, And purify from self: it is a tone The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty; 'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.'
In some of the most forcible lines ever penned, Byron has given us the whole psychological analysis of the effects of human passion, when, in its insane perversion, and misdirected thirst for the infinite, it pours upon the dust that love and worship which is due to God alone. No one who has thus sinned, will refuse to acknowledge their force and truth. Fearful in their Medusa-like beauty, they fascinate the heart, only to turn its warm pulses into ice. They are actually withering in their despair. Poor Byron! did he never, never cry with the repentant but happy St. Augustin: 'Oh, eternal beauty! too late have I known thee!'
'Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps, as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some _celestial fruit_ forbidden to our wants.