CANTO II.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
101
The Warrior's weapon and the Sophist's stole[1]
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower,
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.[2]
III.
Son of the Morning, rise! approach you here!
Come—but molest not yon defenceless Urn:
Look on this spot—a Nation's sepulchre!
Abode of Gods, whose shrines no longer burn.[3]
Even Gods must yield—Religions take their turn:
'Twas Jove's—'tis Mahomet's—and other Creeds
Will rise with other years, till Man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.[4]
IV.
Bound to the Earth, he lifts his eye to Heaven—
Is 't not enough, Unhappy Thing! to know
Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given,
- ↑ ["Stole," apart from its restricted use as an ecclesiastical vestment, is used by Spenser and other poets as an equivalent for any long and loosely flowing robe, but is, perhaps inaccurately, applied to the short cloak (tribon), the "habit" of Socrates when he lived, and, after his death, the distinctive dress of the cynics.]
- ↑ gray flits the Ghost of Power.—[MS. D. erased.]
- ↑ whose altars cease to burn.—[D.]
- ↑ whose Faith is built on reeds.—[MS. D. erased.]
