University of Virginia Library

'Mid radiant masses of reposing light
Yon Temple seems dilated to the sight,
While vast perspectives of cathedral-gloom
Whose drap'ry serves to symbolise the tomb,
Entrance the gazer with absorbing spell
As though some Vision on the spirit fell.
Thoughts of earth and thrills from heaven
Thus to each and all are given,
And accost the inner-sense
With a dumb, deep eloquence,
Such as Faith and Conscience hear
When they bend around the bier.

Now enter there! survey that vaulted Dome
Encircled o'er with beads of golden light,
As though a supernat'ral noon had come
To glorify the realms of night.
Round the curved base a wreath of lustre glances,
High o'er its many-pictured roof advances,
And lights, as if with living play,
Gigantic forms in war-array:
From capital to capital
Through transept and pilaster'd wall
Down nave and aisle the line of lustre streams
O'er circled tiers of dome-ascending seats,
Till the last row some closing pillar meets,
Where soft effulgence tremulously gleams.

But not by picture-words of poetry
Yon mass of concentrated human kind
In hues of language can reflected be,
As e'er to fascinate and fill the mind,
And realise what they beheld,
With voiceless wonder inly quell'd,
Whose spell-bound eyes o'ergazed the mighty Whole,
And caught the magic of the mind and soul
Which beam'd from ev'ry face in that funereal throng,
Beyond the painter's hue, above the poet's song!
Throne and Altar, Bench and State,
Brave and wise, and good and great,
All Britain welcomes with revering eye,
Fill'd the hush'd Fane where buried heroes lie,
And ocean's warrior, in his tomb sublime,
Waits the last trump which rings the knell of Time.
Another gaze! while amber'd sunbeams fall
And through the lofty dome-light streaming,
Come slanting downward on the concave wall
With more than earth-born radiance gleaming,—
On tinted robes in tremulous array
Pulses of painted lustre seem to play.
But, hark! before the western-gate
A solemn Dead-March sounds;
And, moving in sepulchral state,
Approaches to its hallow'd bounds
The last Procession; while the booming knell
Blends its deep cadence with the organswell.
Planted by each bearer's hand,
Flag and Guidon take their stand;
Inglitt'ring column, robed with gorgeous vest,
A double file of grouping warriors rest
Around yon hidden burial-place;
While Choir and Clergy up the nave
Marshal and move, and gleam and wave
Their priestly robes, as on they pace.
And mark, along the living mass
Electrical emotions pass!—
Profound, unreason'd, an instinctive awe
Of something deeper than mere Vision saw,
Thrills the mute concourse, till they meekly rise
With all the patriot glist'ning in their eyes;
And feelings not of this world clothe each brow,
As on, with measured tread, advances now
The choir-procession, while the burial-chant
With resurrection-tones so jubilant,
Peals the dead Warrior on his pluméd bier,
'Mid sigh, and sob, and many a martial tear,
Onward to his long, last home
Underneath th' illumined Dome!
But as the wind-bow'd plumes were bending
High o'er his coffin-lid depending,
How life and death together seem'd to be
And awed the gazer like a Mystery!