TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! Here, where a hero fell, a column falls! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair The swift and silent lizard of the stones! But stay! these walls-these ivy-clad arcades— These mouldering plinths-these sad and blackened shafts --These vague entablatures-this crumbling frieze These shattered cornices-this wreck-this ruin These stones-alas! these grey stones-are they all All of the famed and the colossal left By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me? "Not all "-the Echoes answer me-" not all! Prophetic sounds and loud arise for ever From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, Not all the mysteries that in us lie- M. ΤΟ OT long ago, the writer of these lines, Maintained the power of words,' denied that ever A thought arose within the human brain Beyond the utterance of the human tongue : That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill," Than even the seraph harper, Israfel, (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,") To where the prospect terminates-thee only. |