--fame nor power, nor love, nor leisure,
Others I see whom these surround,
Smiling they live and call life pleasure,
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure!


Poor Shelley! As if the peace within, and the calm around, and the
content surpassing wealth, were things which were to be put in the
same category with fame, and power, and love, and leisure. As if
they were things which could be "dealt" to any man; instead of
depending (as Byron, who, amid all his fearful sins, was a man, knew
well enough) upon a man's self, a man's own will, and that will
exerted to do a will exterior to itself, to know and to obey a law.
But no, the cloud of sentiment must close over again, and


Yet now despair itself is mild
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away this life of care,
Which I have borne, and still must bear,
Till death like sleep might seize on me,
And I might feel in the warm air,
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony!


Too beautiful to laugh at, however empty and sentimental. True: but