Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/565

Which, when it least appeared to melt,
Intensely thought—intensely felt:
The deepest ice which ever froze
Can only o'er the surface close;
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows, and cannot cease to flow.^[1]
Still was his sealed-up bosom haunted^[2]
By thoughts which Nature hath implanted;
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish,
Howe'er our stifled tears we banish;560
When struggling as they rise to start,
We check those waters of the heart,
They are not dried—those tears unshed
But flow back to the fountain head,
And resting in their spring more pure,
For ever in its depth endure,
Unseen—unwept—but uncongealed,
And cherished most where least revealed.
With inward starts of feeling left,
To throb o'er those of life bereft,570
Without the power to fill again
The desert gap which made his pain;
Without the hope to meet them where
United souls shall gladness share;
With all the consciousness that he
Had only passed a just decree;^[3]
That they had wrought their doom of ill;
Yet Azo's age was wretched still.
The tainted branches of the tree,

⁠If lopped with care, a strength may give,580

1. [Lines 551-556 are not in the Copy, but were inserted in the Revise.]
2. Ah, still unwelcomely was haunted.—[Copy.]
3. Had only sealed a just decree.—[Copy.]