"I was a goodly stripling then;

At seventy years I so may say,

That there were few, or boys or men,

Who, in my dawning time of day,

Of vassal or of knight's degree,

Could vie in vanities with me;

For I had strength—youth—gaiety,

A port, not like to this ye see,

But smooth, as all is rugged now;

For Time, and Care, and War, have ploughed190

My very soul from out my brow;

And thus I should be disavowed

By all my kind and kin, could they

Compare my day and yesterday;

This change was wrought, too, long ere age

Had ta'en my features for his page:

With years, ye know, have not declined

My strength—my courage—or my mind,

Or at this hour I should not be

Telling old tales beneath a tree,200

With starless skies my canopy.

But let me on: Theresa's[259] form—

Methinks it glides before me now,

Between me and yon chestnut's bough,

The memory is so quick and warm;

And yet I find no words to tell

The shape of her I loved so well:

She had the Asiatic eye,

Such as our Turkish neighbourhood

Hath mingled with our Polish blood,210

Dark as above us is the sky;

But through it stole a tender light,

Like the first moonrise of midnight;

Large, dark, and swimming in the stream,

Which seemed to melt to its own beam;

All love, half languor, and half fire,

Like saints that at the stake expire,

And lift their raptured looks on high,

As though it were a joy to die.[bs]

A brow like a midsummer lake,220

Transparent with the sun therein,

When waves no murmur dare to make,

And heaven beholds her face within.

A cheek and lip—but why proceed?

I loved her then, I love her still;

And such as I am, love indeed

In fierce extremes—in good and ill.

But still we love even in our rage,

And haunted to our very age

With the vain shadow of the past,—230

As is Mazeppa to the last.