The delicate shaft stricken midway, and the flying buttress
Idly stretching forth to hold up tufted ivy:
Thinkest thou the thousand eyes that shine with rapture on a ruin,
Would have looked with half their wonder on the perfect pile?
And wherefore not—but that light hints, suggesting unseen beauties,
Fill the complacent gazer with self-grown conceits?
And so, the rapid sketch winneth more praise to the painter,
Than the consummate work elaborated on his easel:
And so, the Helvetic lion caverned in the living rock
Hath more of majesty and force, than it upon a marble pedestal.