XIII.
Silence o'erhangs the Delphic cave;
Where strove the bravest of the brave,
Naught met the wandering Byron, save
A lone, deserted barrow;
And Fancy's iris waned away,
When Wordsworth ventured to survey,
Beneath the light of common day,
The dowie dens of Yarrow.
XIV.
Little we dream—when life is new,
And Nature fresh and fair to view,
When throbs the heart to pleasure true,
As if for naught it wanted,—
That, year by year, and ray by ray,
Romance's sunlight dies away,
And long before the hair is gray,
The heart is disenchanted.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition went hand in hand. Horace's
"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala,"
as well as Milton's
"Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimæras dire,"
have all been found wanting, when reduced to the admeasurements of science; and the "sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses," are quenched in silence, or only exist in what James Hogg most poetically terms