II. 1.
Thou spak’st, and lo! a new creation glow’d.
Each unhewn mass of living stone
Was clad in horrors not its own,
And at its base the trembling nations bow’d.
Giant Error, darkly grand,
Grasp’d the globe with iron hand.
Circled with seats of bliss, the Lord of Light
Saw prostrate worlds adore his golden height.
The statue, waking with immortal powers,[[10]]
Springs from its parent earth, and shakes the spheres;
The indignant pyramid sublimely towers,
And braves the efforts of a host of years.
Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind;
And bright-ey’d Painting stamps the image of the mind.
II. 2.
Round their rude ark old Egypt’s sorcerers rise!
A timbrell’d anthem swells the gale,
And bids the God of Thunders hail;[[11]]
With lowings loud the captive God replies.
Clouds of incense woo thy smile,
Scaly monarch of the Nile![[12]]
But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee?[[13]]
Go, count the busy drops that swell the sea.
Proud land! what eye can trace thy mystic lore,
Lock’d up in characters as dark as night?[[14]]
What eye those long, long labyrinths dare explore,[[15]]
To which the parted soul oft wings her flight;
Again to visit her cold cell of clay,
Charm’d with perennial sweets, and smiling at decay?
II. 3.
On yon hoar summit, mildly bright[[16]]
With purple ether’s liquid light,
High o’er the world, the white-rob’d Magi gaze
On dazzling bursts of heavenly fire;
Start at each blue, portentous blaze,
Each flame that flits with adverse spire.
But say, what sounds my ear invade[[17]]
From Delphi’s venerable shade?
The temple rocks, the laurel waves!
“The God! the God!” the Sybil cries.
Her figure swells! she foams, she raves!
Her figure swells to more than mortal size!
Streams of rapture roll along,
Silver notes ascend the skies:
Wake, Echo, wake and catch the song,
Oh catch it, ere it dies!
The Sybil speaks, the dream is o’er,
The holy harpings charm no more.
In vain she checks the God’s controul;
His madding spirit fills her frame,
And moulds the features of her soul,
Breathing a prophetic flame.
The cavern frowns; its hundred mouths unclose!
And, in the thunder’s voice, the fate of empire flows.
III. 1.
Mona, thy Druid-rites awake the dead!
Rites thy brown oaks would never dare
Ev’n whisper to the idle air;
Rites that have chain’d old Ocean on his bed.
Shiver’d by thy piercing glance,
Pointless falls the hero’s lance.
Thy magic bids the imperial eagle fly,[[18]]
And blasts the laureate wreath of victory.
Hark, the bard’s soul inspires the vocal string!
At every pause dread Silence hovers o’er:
While murky Night sails round on raven-wing,
Deepening the tempest’s howl, the torrent’s roar;
Chas’d by the morn from Snowdon’s awful brow,
Where late she sate and scowl’d on the black wave below.
III. 2.
Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears!
The red-cross squadrons madly rage,[[19]]
And mow thro’ infancy and age:
Then kiss the sacred dust and melt in tears.
Veiling from the eye of day,
Penance dreams her life away;
In cloister’d solitude she sits and sighs,
While from each shrine still, small responses rise.
Hear, with what heart-felt beat, the midnight bell
Swings its slow summons thro’ the hollow pile!
The weak, wan votarist leaves her twilight cell,
To walk, with taper dim, the winding isle;
With choral chantings vainly to aspire,
Beyond this nether sphere, on Rapture’s wing of fire.