Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be[1]
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky—the peak—the heaving plain[2]
Of Ocean, or the stars, mingle—and not in vain.
LXXIII.
And thus I am absorbed, and this is life:—
I look upon the peopled desert past,
As on a place of agony and strife,
Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast,
To act and suffer, but remount at last[3]
With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the Blast
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing,
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.[4][5]
- ↑
——but to be
A link reluctant in a living chain
Classing with creatures——.—[MS.] - ↑ And with the air——.—[MS.]
- ↑ To sink and suffer——.—[MS.]
- ↑ ——which partly round us cling.—[MS.]
- ↑ [Compare Horace, Odes, iii. 2. 23, 24—
"Et udam
Spernit humum fugiente pennâ."]
untainted pleasure, but rests in her as inclusive of humanity. The secret of Wordsworth is acquiescence; "the still, sad music of humanity" is the key-note of his ethic. Byron, on the other hand, is in revolt. He has the ardour of a pervert, the rancorous scorn of a deserter. The "hum of human cities" is a "torture." He is "a link reluctant in a fleshly chain." To him Nature and Humanity are antagonists, and he cleaves to the one, yea, he would take her by violence, to mark his alienation and severance from the other.]
