Proud land; what eye can trace thy mystic lore?
Locked up in characters as dark as night!

(13)

What eye those long, long labyrinths dare explore, (14)
To which the parted soul oft wings her flight;
Again to visit her cold cell of clay,

Charmed with perennial sweets, and smiling at decay?

II. 3.

On yon hoar summit, mildly bright

With purple ether's liquid light,

High o'er the world, the white-robed magi gaze
On dazzling bursts of heavenly fire;
Start at each blue, portentous blaze,

Each flame that flits with adverse spire.
But say, what sounds my ear invade
From Delphi's venerable shade?
The temple rocks, the laurel waves!
The god! the god!' the sybil cries.
Her figure swells! she foams! she raves!
Her figure swells to more than mortal size!
Streams of rapture roll along,

Silver notes ascend the skies :

Wake, echo, wake, and catch the song,

Oh catch it ere it dies.

The sibyl speaks, the dream is o er,
The holy harpings charm no more.
In vain she checks the god's controul;
His madning spirit fills her frame,
And moulds the features of her soul,
Breathing a prophetic flame.

III. 1.

The cavern frowns! its hundred mouths unclose!

(15)

(16)

And, in the thunder's voice, the fate of empire flows

Mona, thy druid-rites awake the dead!
Rites thy brown oaks will never dare

Even whisper to the idle air;

Rites that have chained old ocean on his bed.
Shivered by thy piercing glance,

Pointless falls the hero's lance,

Thy magic bids the imperial eagle fly,

(17)

And blasts the laureate wreath of victory.

Hark, the bard's soul inspires the vocal string!
At every pause dread silence hovers o'er :

While murky night sails round on raven-wing, Deepening the tempest's howl, the torrent's roar ; Chased by the morn from Snowdon's awful brow, [low. Where late she sat and scowled on the black wave be

III. 2.

Lo steel-clad war his gorgeous standard rears!

'The red-cross squadrons madly rage,

(18)

And mow through infancy and age;

Then kiss the sacred dust and melt in tears.

Veiling from the eye of day,

Penance dreams her life away;

In cloistered solitude she sits and sighs,

While, from each shrine, still small responses rise.
Hear, with what heart-felt beat, the midnight bell
Swings its slow summons through the hollow pile!
The weak, wan votarist leaves her twilight cell,
To walk, with taper dim, the winding aisle ;
With coral chantings vainly to aspire,

Beyond this nether sphere, on rapture's wing of fire.
III. 3.

Lord of each pang the nerves can feel,

Hence, with the rack and reeking weel.

Faith lifts the soul above this little ball!
While gleams of glory open round,
And circling choirs of angels call.
Canst thou, with all thy terrors crowned,
Hope to obscure that latent spark,
Destined to shine when suns are dark?
Thy triumphs cease! through every land,
Hark! TRUTH proclaims thy triumphs cease;
Her heavenly form, with glowing hand,
Benignly points to piety and peace.
Flushed with youth, her looks impart
Each fine feeling as it flows;

Her voice the echo of her heart,
Pure as the mountain-snows;
Celestial transports round her play,
And softly, sweetly die away.

She smiles! and where is now the cloud
That blackened o'er thy baleful reign?
Grim darkness furls his leaden shroud,
Shrinking from her glance in vain.

Her touch unlocks the day-spring from above,
And, lo! it visits man with beams of light and love.

NOTES

ON THE

ODE TO SUPERSTITION.

NOTE 1. Page 57.

AN allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigenia.

NOTE 2. Page 58.

Quæ caput a coeli regionibus estendebat,
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans.

LUCRETIUS, 1. i. v. 65.

NOTE 3. Page 58.

When we were ready to set out, our host muttered some words in the ears of our cattle.

See a voyage to the north of Europe, in 1653.

NOTE 4. Page 58.

The bramins voluntarily expose their bodies to the in tense heat of the sun.

Ridens moriar.

NOTE 5. Page 58.

The conclusion of an old Runic ode

preserved by Olaus Wormius.

NOTE 6. Page 58.

In the Bedas, or sacred writings of the Hindoos, is this passage:-She who dies with her husband, shall live for ever with him in heaven.

NOTE 7. Page 59.

The fates of the northern mythology. See MALLET'S Antiquities.

NOTE 8. Page 59.

An allusion to the second sight.

NOTE 9. Page 59.

See that fine description of the sudden animation of the Palladium in the second book of the Æneid.

NOTE 10. Page 59.

The bull Apis.

NOTE 11. Page 59,

The Crocodile.