So gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays. - Lord Byron

The starry fable of the milky way
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
Where sparkle distant worlds: - Oh, holiest nurse!
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.

Let him! He is great but in his greatness he is no happier than we in our conflict! Goodness would not make evil; and what else hath he made? but let him sit on his vast solitary throne, creating worlds to make eternity less burthensome to his immense existence.

Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one’s laurels
By blood or ink; ’tis sweet to put an end
To strife; ’tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend;
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;
Dear is the helpless creature we defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne’er forget, though there we are forgot.

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate love — it stands alone,
Like Adam’s recollection of his fall;
The tree of knowledge has been pluck’d — all’s known — And life yields nothing further to recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filch’d for us from heaven.