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Literary Gazette, 25th June, 1831, Pages 411-412
ORIGINAL POETRY.
THE HALL OF STATUES.
Rich the crimson curtains fell,
Coloured with the hues that dwell
In the Tyrian's purple shell—
That bright secret which is known
To the mighty past alone.
Forty pillars rose between,
In that fine Corinthian mould
When a life's whole task has been
How to work the burning gold—
Gold which some young conqueror's hand
Brought from many a vanquish'd land;
Then bade genius raise a shrine—
Thus profaning the divine—
Till his rapine and his crime
Grew in that false light sublime.
Azure was the roof, and light
Pour'd down from the crystal dome;
Clear the crystal was and bright
As in its own ocean home.
Polish'd like a warrior's shield,
Black (for such the quarries yield
Where the sun hath never shone,
Which night only rests upon,)
Was the marble floor, which gave
Mirror like some clear dark wave.
Silent was that hall around,
Moved no step and stirred no sound;
Yet the shapes of life were there,
Spiritual, calm, and fair—
Statues to whose rest seem'd given
Not the life of earth but heaven;
For each statue here enshrined
What in the immortal mind
Makes its beauty and its power—
Genius's eternal dower:
Those embodyings of thought
Which within the spirit wrought
In its most ethereal time,
Of its own and earlier clime
