By the blue rushing of the arrowy[1] Rhone,N17
Or the pure bosom of its nursing Lake,
Which feeds it as a mother who doth make
A fair but froward infant her own care,
Kissing its cries away as these awake;—[2]
Is it not better thus our lives to wear,
Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?
LXXII.
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum[3]
Of human cities torture: I can see[4]
- ↑ [The name "Tigris" is derived from the Persian tîr (Sanscrit Tigra), "an arrow." If Byron ever consulted Hofmann's Lexicon Universale, he would have read, "Tigris, a velocitate dictus quasi sagitta;" but most probably he neither had nor sought an authority for his natural and beautiful simile.]
- ↑ To its young cries and kisses all awake.—[MS.]
- ↑ [Compare Tintern Abbey. In this line, both language and sentiment are undoubtedly Wordsworth's—
"The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours, and their forms, were then to me
An appetite, a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm."But here the resemblance ends. With Wordsworth the mood passed, and he learned
"To look on Nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, but of amplest power
To chasten and subdue."He would not question Nature in search of new and
- ↑ Of peopled cities——.—[MS.]
