its career,
Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear?
Would I not pay them back these pangs again, 100
And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan?
The struggle to be calm, and cold distress,
Which undermines our Stoical success?
No!--still too proud to be vindictive--I
Have pardoned Princes' insults, and would die.
Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake
I weed all bitterness from out my breast,
It hath no business where _thou_ art a guest:
Thy brother hates--but I can not detest;
Thou pitiest not--but I can not forsake. 110

V.

Look on a love which knows not to despair,
But all unquenched is still my better part,
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart,
As dwells the gathered lightning in its cloud,
Encompassed with its dark and rolling shroud,
Till struck,--forth flies the all-ethereal dart!
And thus at the collision of thy name
The vivid thought still flashes through my frame,
And for a moment all things as they were
Flit by me;--they are gone--I am the same. 120
And yet my love without ambition grew;
I knew thy state--my station--and I knew
A Princess was no love-mate for a bard;[182]
I told it not--I breathed it not[183]--it was
Sufficient to itself, its own reward;
And if my eyes revealed it, they, alas!
Were punished by the silentness of thine,
And yet I did not venture to repine.
Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine,
Worshipped at holy distance, and around 130
Hallowed and meekly kissed the saintly ground;
Not for thou wert a Princess, but that Love
Had robed thee with a glory, and arrayed
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismayed--
Oh! not dismayed--but awed, like One above!
And in that sweet severity[184] there was
A something which all softness did surpass--
I know not how--thy Genius mastered mine--
My Star stood still before thee:--if it were
Presumptuous thus to love without design, 140
That sad fatality hath cost me dear;
But thou art dearest still, and I should be
Fit for this cell, which wrongs me--but for _thee_.
The very love which locked me to my chain
Hath lightened half its weight; and for the rest,
Though heavy, lent me vigour to susta