600
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 75
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 75
VI
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 80
With an earth-awakening blast
Through the caverns of the past:
(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:)
A wingèd sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew, 85
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;
One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 90
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 80
With an earth-awakening blast
Through the caverns of the past:
(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:)
A wingèd sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew, 85
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;
One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 90
VII
Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,
Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad[1],
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest
From that Elysian food was yet unweaned:
And many a deed of terrible uprightness 95
By thy sweet love was sanctified;
And in thy smile, and by thy side,
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.
But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness,
And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, 100
Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,
The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone
Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus signed
Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown 105
Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,
Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad[1],
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest
From that Elysian food was yet unweaned:
And many a deed of terrible uprightness 95
By thy sweet love was sanctified;
And in thy smile, and by thy side,
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.
But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness,
And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, 100
Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,
The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone
Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus signed
Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown 105
VIII
From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main,
Or utmost islet inaccessible.
Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,
Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 110
And every Naiad's ice-cold urn,
To talk in echoes sad and stern
Of that sublimest lore[2] which man had dared unlearn?
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. 115
What if the tears rained through thy shattered[3] locks
From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main,
Or utmost islet inaccessible.
Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,
Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 110
And every Naiad's ice-cold urn,
To talk in echoes sad and stern
Of that sublimest lore[2] which man had dared unlearn?
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks
Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. 115
What if the tears rained through thy shattered[3] locks
