Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/98

This charms with beauty regular and chaste,
And elegance correct of Grecian taste.
The comely parts exact proportion show,
And to one whole by fit connections grow.
Corinthian columns the fair walls adorn;
Light seems the lofty frame, and easy borne.
That labours with the vast and cumbrous load
Of various ornaments, profuse bestowed:
Huge pillars heave to a stupendous height,
Their Gothic grandeur's vast unwieldy weight: 120
The pile the rich unpolished genius shows
Of that wild daring age in which it rose.
 Round these fair courts, where stately structures rise,
And that ascending spire salutes the skies;
Fair truth displays, in all her native light,
Resistless charms, celestially bright!
And gently leads the willing mind along,
As charmed with sweetness of angelic song:
The atheist learns his Maker to adore;
Ashamed, the wicked wish to sin no more. 130
 Here dwell the muses: In their sacred halls,
Soft as descending dew their doctrine falls.
Rome's ancient heroes, marshalled for the fight,
Tremendous rise in pure historic light;