[525] [This stanza may be paraphrased, but not construed. Apparently, the meaning is that as the eye becomes accustomed to the details and proportions of the building, the sense of its vastness increases. Your first impression was at fault, you had not begun to realize the almost inconceivable vastness of the structure. You had begun to climb the mountain, and the dazzling peak seemed to be close at your head, but as you ascend, it recedes. "Thou movest," but the building expands; "thou climbest," but the Alp increases in height. In both cases the eye has been deceived by gigantic elegance, by the proportion of parts to the whole.]
[po] And fair proportions which beguile the eyes.—[MS. M. erased.]
Painting and marble of so many dyes—
And glorious high altar where for ever burn.—[MS. M. erased.]
Its Giant's limbs and by degrees——
or, The Giant eloquence and thus unroll.—[MS. M. erased.]
——our narrow sense
Cannot keep pace with mind——[MS. M. erased.]
[ps] [{445}] What Earth nor Time—nor former Thought could frame.—[MS. M. erased.]
[pt] Before your eye—and ye return not as ye came.—[MS. M. erased.]