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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359084" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Ruling Thought</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Most sweet, most powerful,<br>Controller of my inmost soul;<br>The terrible, yet precious gift<br>Of heaven, companion kind<br>Of all my days of misery,<br>O thought, that ever dost recur to me;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of thy mysterious power<br>Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt<br>Its subtle influence?<br>Yet, when one is by feeling deep impelled<br>Its secret joys and sorrows to unfold,<br>The theme seems ever new however old.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How isolated is my mind,<br>Since thou in it hast come to dwell!<br>As by some magic spell,<br>My other thoughts have all,<br>Like lightning, disappeared;<br>And thou, alone, like some huge tower,<br>In a deserted plain,<br>Gigantic, solitary, dost remain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How worthless quite,<br>Save but for thee, have in my sight<br>All earthly things, and life itself become!<br>How wearisome its days;<br>And all its works, and all its plays,<br>A vain pursuit of pleasures vain,<br>Compared with the felicity,<br>The heavenly joy, that springs from thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As from the naked rocks<br>Of the rough Apennine,<br>The weary pilgrim turns his longing eyes<br>To the bright plain that in the distance lies;<br>So from the rough and barren intercourse<br>Of worldly men, to thee I gladly turn,<br>As to a Paradise, my weary mind,<br>And sweet refreshment for my senses find.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It seems to me incredible, that I<br>This dreary world, this wretched life,<br>So full of folly and of strife,<br>Without thy aid, could have so long endured;<br>Nor can I well conceive,<br>How one's desires _could_ cling<br>To other joys than those which thou dost bring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never, since first I knew<br>By hard experience what life is,<br>Could fear of death my soul subdue.<br>To-day, a jest to me appears,<br>That which the silly world,<br>Praising at times, yet ever hates and fears,<br>The last extremity!<br>If danger comes, I, with undaunted mien,<br>Its threats encounter with a smile serene.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I always hated coward souls,<br>And meanness held in scorn.<br>_Now_, each unworthy act<br>At once through all my senses thrills;<br>Each instance vile of human worthlessness,<br>My soul with holy anger fills.<br>This arrogant, this foolish age,<br>Which feeds itself on empty hopes,<br>Absorbed in trifles, virtue's enemy,<br>Which idly clamors for utility,<br>And has not sense enough to see<br>How _useless_ all life thenceforth must become,<br>I feel _beneath_ me, and its judgments laugh<br>To scorn. The motley crew,<br>The foes of every lofty thought,<br>Who laugh at _thee_, I trample under foot.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To that, which thee inspires,<br>What passion yieldeth not?<br>What other, save this one,<br>Controls our hearts' desires?<br>Ambition, avarice, disdain, and hate,<br>The love of power, love of fame,<br>What are they but an empty name,<br>Compared with it? And this,<br>The source, the spring of all,<br>That sovereign reigns within the breast,<br>Eternal laws have on our hearts impressed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Life hath no value, meaning hath,<br>Save but for thee, our only hope and stay;<br>The sole excuse for Fate,<br>That cruelly hath placed us here,<br>To undergo such useless misery;<br>For thee alone, the wise man, not the fool,<br>To life still fondly clings,<br>Nor calls on death to end his sufferings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thy joys to gather, thou sweet thought,<br>Long years of sorrow I endure,<br>And bear of weary life the strain;<br>But not in vain!<br>And I would still return,<br>In spite of all my sad experience,<br>Towards such a goal, my course to recommence;<br>For through the sands, and through the viper-brood<br>Of this, our mortal wilderness,<br>My steps I ne'er so wearily have dragged<br>To thee, that all the danger and distress<br>Were not repaid by such pure happiness.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O what a world, what new immensity,<br>What paradise is that,<br>To which, so oft, by thy stupendous charm<br>Impelled, I seem to soar! Where I<br>Beneath a brighter light am wandering,<br>And my poor earthly state,<br>And all life's bitter truths forget!<br>Such are, I ween, the dreams<br>Of the Immortals. Ah, what _but_ a dream,<br>Art thou, sweet thought,<br>The truth, that thus embellished?<br>A dream, an error manifest!<br>But of a nature, still divine,<br>An error brave and strong,<br>That will with truth the fight prolong,<br>And oft for truth doth compensate;<br>Nor leave us e'er, till summoned hence by Fate.<br>And surely thou, my thought,<br>Thou sole sustainer of my days,<br>The cause beloved of sorrows infinite,<br>In Death alone wilt be extinguished quite;<br>For by sure signs within my soul I feel<br>Thy sovereign sway, perpetual.<br>All other fancies sweet<br>The aspect of the truth<br>Hath weakened ever. But whene'er I turn<br>To gaze again on her, of whom with thee<br>To speak, is all I live for, ah,<br>That great delight increases still,<br>That frenzy fine, the breath of life, to me!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Angelic beauty! Every lovely face,<br>On which I gaze,<br>A phantom seems to me,<br>That vainly strives to copy thee,<br>Of all the graces that our souls inthral,<br>Sole fount, divine original!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Since first I thee beheld,<br>Of what most anxious care of mine,<br>Hast thou not been the end and aim?<br>What day has ever passed, what hour,<br>When I thought not of thee? What dream of mine<br>Has not been haunted by thy face divine?<br>Angelic countenance, that we<br>In dreams, alas, alone may see,<br>What else on earth, what in the universe,<br>Do I e'er ask, or hope for, more,<br>Than those dear eyes forever to behold?<br>Than thy sweet thought still in my heart to hold?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Count+Giacomo+Leopardi">Count Giacomo Leopardi</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359084" data-title="The Ruling Thought de Count Giacomo Leopardi" data-description="Most sweet, most powerful,
Controller of my inmost soul;
The terrible, yet precious gift
Of heaven, companion kind
Of all my days of misery,
O thought, that ever dost recur to me;

Of thy mysterious power
Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt
Its su..."></div>
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