Manfred

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains.—Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learn'd the language of another world.

Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes, and greater criminals?

There is an order Of mortals on the earth, who do become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, Without the violence of warlike death; Some perishing of pleasure, some of study, Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness, Some of disease, and some insanity, And some of wither’d or of broken hearts; For this last is a malady which slays More than are number’d in the lists of Fate, Taking all shapes and bearing many names.

The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts, Is its own origin of ill and end, And its own place and time; its innate sense, When stripped of this mortality, derives No colour from the fleeting things without, But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, Born from the knowledge of its own desert.

I said with men, and with the thoughts of men, I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the wilderness—to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top, Where the birds dare not build—nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge Into the torrent, and to roll along On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow. In these my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon, The stars and their development; or catch The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim; Or to look, list'ning, on the scattered leaves, While Autumn winds were at their evening song. These were my pastimes, and to be alone... [...]

From my youth upwards My Spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joy was in the wilderness—to breathe the difficult air of the iced mountain's top, Where the birds dare not build—nor insect's wing. These were my pastimes, and to be alone; For if the beings, of whom I was one—Hating to be so—crossed me in my path, I felt myself degraded back to them, And was all clay again. And then I dived, In my lone wanderings, to the caves of Death, Searching its cause in its effect; and drew from withered bones, and skulls, and heaped up dust conclusions most forbidden.