LB-Lara 01-08
CANTO THE FIRST.

VIII.

'Twas strange - in youth all action and all life,
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;
Woman - the field - the ocean - all that gave
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,
In turn he tried - he ransack'd all below,
And found his recompence in joy or woe,
No tame, trite medium; for his feelings sought
In that intenseness an escape from thought:
The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed
On that the feebler elements hath raised;
The rapture of his heart had look'd on high,
And ask'd if greater dwelt beyond the sky:
Chain'd to excess, the slave of each extreme,
How woke he from the wildness of that dream?
Alas! he told not - but he did awake
To curse the wither'd heart that would not break.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) ByronLong