Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/299

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CANTO III.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
263

LXXIV.

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free
From what it hates in this degraded form,[1]
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be
Existent happier in the fly and worm,—
When Elements to Elements conform,
And dust is as it should be, shall I not
Feel all I see less dazzling but more warm?
The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?[2]
Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?[3]


LXXV.

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part[4]
Of me and of my Soul, as I of them?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart
With a pure passion? should I not contemn
All objects, if compared with these? and stem

A tide of suffering, rather than forego
  1. ——in this degrading form.—[MS.]
  2. ——the Spirit in each spot.—[MS.]
  3. [The "bodiless thought" is the object, not the subject, of his celestial vision. "Even now," as through a glass darkly, and with eyes

    "Whose half-beholdings through unsteady tears
    Gave shape, hue, distance to the inward dream,"

    his soul "had sight" of the spirit, the informing idea, the essence of each passing scene; but, hereafter, his bodiless spirit would, as it were, encounter the place-spirits face to face. It is to be noted that warmth of feeling, not clearness or fulness of perception, attends this spiritual recognition.]

  4. [Is not] the universe a breathing part?—[MS.]