"Nay," answer'd Arthur, "ever, as before,98
Alone the Pilgrim to his bourne must go;
But range the men conceal'd along the shore;
Set watch, from these green turrets, for the foe;
Moor'd to the marge where broadest hangs the bough,
Hide from the sun the glitter of the prow:—
And so farewell!" He said; to land he leapt;99
And with dull murmur from its verdant waves,
O'er his high crest the billowy forest swept.
As towards some fitful light the swimmer cleaves
His stalwart way,—so through the woven shades
Where the pale wing now glimmers and now fades.
With strong hand parting the tough branches, goes100
Hour after hour the King; till light at last
From skies long hid, in ambient silver flows
Through opening glades, the length of gloom is past,
And the dark pines receding stand around
A silent hill with antique ruins crown'd.
Day had long closed; and from the mournful deeps101
Of old volcanoes spent, the livid moon
Which through the life of planets lifeless creeps
Her ghostly way, deaf to the choral tune
Of spheres rejoicing, on those ruins old
Look'd down, herself a ruin,—hush'd and cold.
Mutely the granite wrecks the King survey'd,102
And knew the work of hands Cimmerian,
What time in starry robes, and awe array'd,
Grey Druids spoke the oracles of man—
Solving high riddles to Chaldean Mage,
Or the young wonder of the Samian Sage.
A date remounting far beyond the day103
When Roman legions met the scythèd cars,
When purer founts sublime had lapsed away
Through the deep rents of unrecorded wars,
And bloodstain'd altars cursed the mountain sod,[9]
Where the first faith had hail'd the Only God.
For all now left us of the parent Celt,104
Is of that later and corrupter time,—
Not in rude domeless fanes those Fathers knelt,
Who lured the Brahman from his burning clime,
Who charm'd lost science from each lone abyss,
And wing'd the shaft of Scythian Abaris.[10]
Yea, the grandsires of our primæval race105
Saw angel tracks the earlier earth upon,
And as a rising sun, the morning face
Of Truth more near the flush'd horizon shone;
Filling ev'n clouds with many a golden light,
Lost when the orb is at the noonday height.
Through the large ruins (now no more), the last106
Perchance on earth of those diviner sires,
With noiseless step the lone descendant pass'd;
Not there were seen Bâl-huan's amber pyres;
No circling shafts with barbarous fragments strewn,
Spoke creeds of carnage to the spectral moon.
But Art, vast, simple, and sublime, was there107
Ev'n in its mournful wrecks,—such Art foregone
As the first Builders, when their grand despair
Left Shinar's tower and city half undone,
Taught where they wander'd o'er the newborn world.—
Column, and vault, and roof, in ruin hurl'd,