PRINCE ATHANASE. A FRAGMENT. 1817. PART I. THERE was a youth who, as with toil and travel, Had grown quite weak and grey before his time; Nor any could the restless griefs unravel Which burned within him, withering up his prime And goading him, like fiends, from land to land. Not his the load of any secret crime, For naught of ill his heart could understand, Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame ; 10 Had left within his soul their dark unrest: For none than he a purer heart could have, What sorrow strange, and shadowy, and unknown, Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind ? If with a human sadness he did groan, He had a gentle yet aspiring mind; In others' joy, when all their own is dead: He loved, and laboured for his kind in grief, And yet, unlike all others, it is said That from such toil he never found relief; His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate Apart from men, as in a lonely tower, Pitying the tumult of their dark estate- 20 30 The strength of wealth or thought, to con secrate Those false opinions which the harsh rich use To blind the world they famish for their pride; Nor did he hold from any man his dues, |