When, from the heart where Sorrow sits,

Her dusky shadow mounts too high,

And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;

Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink:

My Thoughts their dungeon know too well;

Back to my breast the Wanderers shrink,

And droop within their silent cell.[ce]

September, 1813.

[MS. M. first published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]