Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/110

That bids me loathe my present state,
⁠And fly from all I prized the most:

4.

It is that weariness which springs
⁠From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
⁠Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

5.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
⁠The fabled Hebrew Wanderer bore;
That will not look beyond the tomb,
⁠But cannot hope for rest before.

6.

What Exile from himself can flee?^[1]
⁠To zones though more and more remote,^[2]
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
⁠The blight of Life—the Demon Thought.^[3]

7.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,

⁠And taste of all that I forsake;

1. [Compare Horace, Odes, II. xvi. 19, 20—

   ⁠"Patriæ quis exsul
   Se quoque fugit?"]

2. To other zones howe'er remote
   Still, still pursuing clings to me.—[MS. erased.]

3. [Compare Prior's Solomon, bk. iii. lines 85, 86—

   "In the remotest wood and lonely grot
   Certain to meet that worst of evils—thought."]