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When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,2
Her voice their only ransom from afar:

(1) That is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon-Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon.

(2) The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias. (3) Venice Preserved: Mysteries of Udolpho: The GhostSeer, or Armenian; The Merchant of Venice; "Othello.

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(4) Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than any other mountain tree.

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Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing life, with her redundant horn. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps, Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn.

XLIX. 1

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty; we inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil

Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would
fail;

And to the fond idolaters of old

Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould :

L.

We
gaze and turn away, and not know where,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness; there-for ever there-
Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art,
We stand as captives, and would not depart.
Away!-there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart,

Where Pedantry gulls Folly-we have eyes : Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

LI.

Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise P
Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or,
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies
Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War?
And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are
With lava kisses melting while they burn,

Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an

urn.

LII.

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,
Their full divinity inadequate

That feeling to express, or to improve,
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate
Has moments like their brightest! but the weight
Of earth recoils upon us ;-let it go!
We can recall such visions, and create
From what has been, or might be, things which
grow,

Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.

LIII.

I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands,
The artist and his ape, to teach and tell
How well his connoisseurship understands
The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
Let these describe the undescribable :

I would not their vile breath should crisp the

stream

Wherein that image shall for ever dwell; The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.

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