A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—
A portion of the tempest and of thee![1]
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,[2]
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 'tis black,—and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young Earthquake's birth.[3]
XCIV.
Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted[4][5]
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted:
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,
- ↑ A portion of the Storm—a part of thee.—[MS.]
- ↑ ——a fiery sea.—[MS.]
- ↑ As they had found an heir and feasted o'er his birth.—[MS. erased.]
- ↑
Hills which look like brethren with twin heights
Of a like aspect——.—[MS. erased.] - ↑ [There can be no doubt that Byron borrowed this metaphor from the famous passage in Coleridge's Christabel (ii. 408-426), which he afterwards prefixed as a motto to Fare Thee Well.
The latter half of the quotation runs thus—
"But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining—
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once had been."]
