Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size, of that they contemplate. Then pause, and be enlightened; there is more In such a survey than the sating gaze Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore Of art and its great masters, who could raise Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. CLX. Or, turning to the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain— A fathers' love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending :-Vain The struggle: vain against the coiling strain pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. CLXI. Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow CLXII. But in his delicate form-a dream of Love, Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast Long'd for a deathless lover from above The mind within its most unearthly mood, Star-like, around, until they gathered to a god! CLXIII. And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven One ringlet in the dust-nor hath it caught A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought CLXIV. But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, He is no more these breathings are his last; With forms which live and suffer-let that pass CLXV. Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all That we inherit in its mortal shroud, And spreads the dim and universal pall Through which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud Between us sinks and all which ever glowed, Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays A melancholy halo scarce allowed To hover on the verge of darkness; rays Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, CLXVI. And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be, when the frame Oh, happier thought can we be made the same: It is enough in sooth that once we bore These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat was gore. CLXVII. Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, A long low distant murmur of dread sound, With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. Peasants bring forth in safety. Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Our children should obey her child, and bless'd Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherds' eyes:-'twas but a meteor beam'd Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, |