‘All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; _255
The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.
‘And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.
‘And near him walk the … twain, _260
The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.
‘The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; _265
‘The other long outlived both woes and wars,
Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous key of Truth’s eternal doors,
‘If Bacon’s eagle spirit had not lept
Like lightning out of darkness—he compelled _270
The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept
‘To wake, and lead him to the caves that held
The treasure of the secrets of its reign.
See the great bards of elder time, who quelled
‘The passions which they sung, as by their strain _275
May well be known: their living melody
Tempers its own contagion to the vein
‘Of those who are infected with it—I
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
And so my words have seeds of misery— _180
‘Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.’
And then he pointed to a company,