And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven The fire which we endure, it was repaid By him to whom the energy was given Which this poetic marble hath array'd With an eternal glory-which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought; And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust-nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought.
But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, The being who upheld it through the past? Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. He is no more-these breathings are his last; His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, And he himself as nothing:-if he was Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd With forms which live and suffer-let that pass-- His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,
Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all
That we inherit in its mortal shroud,
And spreads the dim and universal pall
Through which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud
Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd,
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
A melancholy halo scarce allow'd
To hover on the verge of darkness; rays
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,
And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolved to something less than this Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame, And wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more shall hear,-but never more, Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:
It is enough in sooth that once we bore
These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat was gore.
Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, A long low distant murmur of dread sound, Such as arises when a nation bleeds With some deep and immedicable wound;
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd, And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy
Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy.
Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored!
Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! The husband of a year! the father of the dead!
Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions! How we did entrust Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd Our children should obey her child, and bless'd
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherds' eyes :-'twas but a meteor beam'd.
Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung Against their blind omnipotence a weight
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,—
These might have been her destiny; but no, Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe; But now a bride and mother—and now there! How many ties did that stern moment tear! From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.
Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears The oak from his foundation, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.
And near Albano's scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley ;-and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, "Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star Rose o'er an empire;-but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome;—and where bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight.
But I forget. My pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part, so let it be,- His task and mine alike are nearly done; Yet once more let us look upon the sea; The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold
Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd
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