So seeming sweet, he cannot chide.
He cannot chide; although he feel,
While listening to the magic verse,
A serpent round his bosom steal,
He still shall hug the coiling curse.
Or if beneath Italian skies,
The wanderer's feet delighted glide,
Harold, in merry Juan's guise,
Shall be his tutor and his guide.
One living essence God hath poured
In every heart--the love of sway--
And though he may not wield the sword,
Each is a despot in his way.
The infant rules by cries and tears--
The maiden, with her sunny eyes--
The miser, with the hoard of years--
The monarch, with his clanking ties.
To me the will--the power--were given.
O'er plaything man to weave my spell,
And if I bore him up to heaven,
'Twas but to hurl him down to hell.
And if I chose upon the rack
Of doubt to stretch the tortured mind,
To turn Faith's heavenward footstep back,
Her hope despoiled--her vision, blind--
Or if on Virtue's holy brow,
A wreath of scorn I sought to twine--
And bade her minions mocking bow,
With sweeter vows at pleasure's shrine--
Or if I mirrored to the thought,