Lara by Lord Byron — Read

I / The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, / And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain; / He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord, / The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored: / There be bright faces in the busy hall, / Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall; / Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays / The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze; / And gay retainers gather round the hearth, / With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 10

II / The Chief of Lara is returned again: / And why had Lara crossed the bounding main? / Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know, / Lord of himself, - that heritage of woe, / That fearful empire which the human breast / But holds to rob the heart within of rest! - / With none to check, and few to point in time / The thousand paths that slope the way to crime; / Then, when he most required commandment, then / Had Lara's daring boyhood governed men. 20 / It skills not, boots not step by step to trace / His youth through all the mazes of its race; / Short was the course his restlessness had run, / But long enough to leave him half undone.