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They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak
Like sybils of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain:
They make us what we are not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows—are they so?
Is not the past all shadow ? what are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchancs in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.
Byron.
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak
Like sybils of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain:
They make us what we are not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows—are they so?
Is not the past all shadow ? what are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchancs in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.
Byron.
The language of resentment is generally more violent than the occasion demands, and he who uses it, is of all mankind the least qualified to judge impartially of its propriety; but those who suffer deeply, will express themselves strongly; those who have been cruelly attacked, will use the means of resistance which are within their reach; and observations, which appear to a general observer, bitter, and acrimonious, may perhaps wear another character to him who is acquainted with the circumstances which occasioned them.
