The Poet’s Impulse

Lord Byron (1788–1824)

From “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto III.

SKY, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye

With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul

To make these felt and feeling, well may be

Things that have made me watchful; the far roll

Of your departing voices is the knoll

Of what in me is sleepless,—if I rest.

But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?

Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

Could I embody and unbosom now

That which is most within me,—could I wreak

My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw

Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,

All that I would have sought, and all I seek,

Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe—into one word,

And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;

But as it is, I live and die unheard,

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.