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The gaudy dome to Pagan worship known,
By Ingo's zealous hand at length o'erthrown;
O'er the long-reaching ruins still rever'd,
The Gothic pile its form majestic rear'd.
The fretted columns of ambitious height,
And bulk enormous, fix th' astonish'd sight;
And as they boldly rise on either hand,
Like kindred giants in dread phalanx stand:
While thro' the isles that stretch a length'ning way,
The umber'd windows shed terrific day.

Amidst the wonders of the new abode,
The bursting organ seem'd itself a god!
Diffusing its magnificence of sound,
And sending to the soul its note profound.

Th' admiring numbers next the altar view'd,
Crown'd with the image of the holy Rood,
Displaying the sublime awards of Heav'n,
A bleeding Deity—a world forgiv'n.—
The awe-struck Bards stood bound as with a spell,
While from their grasp the chill'd harp lifeless fell:
The lowly valley, and the hill sublime,
Echoed no more the battle-breathing rhyme.
Thus an eclipse by terror's hand imbrown'd,
Wrapt in concealment the poetic ground;
But time at length the hov'ring veil withdrew,
When all the gorgeous scenery burst to view.
The Genius joy'd to see his ancient store
Enrich'd with many a form unknown before.

The clouds recede, while op'ning skies display
Th' angelic hierarchy in proud array:
Rank rising above rank in order due,
The splendid consistory meets his view.

Now spirits of another form appear,
And from the yawning graves their shadows rear!
Here glides a ghastly shade, intent to shed
A scene of terror round the murd'rer's bed:
There, 'midst the solemn silence of the night,
Beneath the half-veil'd moon's reluctant light,
The shade of buried Denmark stalks along,
Fraught with his woes, indignant of his wrong.

See, from yon infant's tomb, ascend to sight
A little form attir'd in purest white:
She meets the mother bending o'er the tomb,
And wailing her lov'd girl's untimely doom.
‘Hail to thy grief!’ the gentle vision cries,
‘Hail to those tears that trickle from thine eyes:

‘Too feeling parent, mitigate thy pain,
‘Nor waste thy life beneath this gloomy fane:
‘Ah know, thy child with angels soars on high,
‘In the bright mansions of the upper sky,
‘And deck'd with wings that glitter to the ray,
‘Plays on the sun-beams of eternal day:
‘Pass a few years, to Heav'n's dread will resign'd,
‘And thou shalt leave all sorrow far behind;
‘The bliss I now enjoy thou shalt obtain,
‘And e'en Maria shall be thine again.’

At length, o'erspreading the poetic land,
Advanc'd the various allegoric band:
First on a flow'r-clad hill sublimely high,
Whose brow aspiring rush'd into the sky,
Hope with a cheering aspect took her stand,
A radiant pencil glitt'ring in her hand,
With this she colours the dark clouds that low'r,
And threaten man with rude misfortune's show'r.

Then Celibacy came, in cloisters bred,
A sluggish, shard-born form, with dust o'erspread:
Dead to the bliss that social life bestows,
Dead to the bliss that from affection flows,
Dead to the blandishments of female pow'r,
He schools the priesthood in his iron bow'r.

Then Grace—the Hebe of the Christian sky,
With smiling lip and comfort-beaming eye!
Th' angelic numbers from their thrones above
Stoop'd to behold this object of their love:
Thus the full host of stars in cloudless night
Gaze on the earth from their ethereal height.

His meagre form now Disappointment rears,
His cheek deep-channel'd with incessant tears,
Trailing, as still he treads the thorny plain,
Of blasted hopes the long immeasurable chain.

Now Conscience enter'd on the trembling scene,
And to the bad disclos'd her with'ring mien:
But chiefly when the death-watch strikes the ear,
This dread recorder of the past draws near:
Ere sick'ning Gertrude fell to death a prey ,
(Tradition still repeats the moral lay)
To goad the bosom of that impious dame,
To the pale suff'rer's couch prompt Conscience came,
Like a dire necromancer skill'd to raise
Th' accusing ghosts of her departed days!
Her lab'ring heart sent forth distraction's sigh,
As on the Priest she cast th' imploring eye:
Then to the Cross (while tears her bosom lave)
The kiss of terror, not of love, she gave:
Now, yielding to th' access of wild despair,
She shrieks, and rends with savage grasp her hair:
Now to reflection's gentler pow'r consign'd,
Long plaintive tones denote her troubled mind:

At length, sad spectacle of wrath divine!
The high-born wretch expires without a sign .

On the dire battle's late-ensanguin'd plain,
Morality stood musing o'er the slain!
Yet then the mourner rais'd her drooping head,
And thus with sacred energy she said:
‘Here—where the fatal scenes of slaughter end,
‘Where hostile nations in dread union blend,
‘Where sleep the great, the daring, and the proud,
‘Amidst this silent solitary crowd,
‘Bid the young monarch quench ambition's flame,
‘And 'gainst his passions daring war proclaim.’

Thus came th' instructive allegoric train,
To swell the triumph of the Scaldic reign:
The Genius now beheld a ghastly crowd,
Borne thro' the mid air on the evening cloud:

The sable pageantry (when near) display'd
Th' unhallow'd form of many a horrid shade.
Envelop'd in a robe of darkest hue,
The half-existing phantom burst to view;
From out the robe a death's-head seem'd to rise,
Thro' which tremendous glar'd two fulgent eyes.
He too of dreadful fame, th' alarming spright,
The unnam'd lonely wand'rer of the night,
Whose shriek, profaning the repose around,
Foreboded death to him who heard the sound.
With wings outstretch'd the Gryphon next was seen,
Half-eagle, lion-half, a form obscene:
To these th' innumerable host adjoin'd
Of shapes uncouth, the tyrants of the mind,
Matchless in force, and splenetic of mood,
The family of death, and terror's brood.

The moon now launching on th' expanse of night,
Exulting sail'd amidst a flood of light;
Along whose beams (diminutive of size)
A ship aerial glided thro' the skies:
Which as it rode resplendent from afar,
Assum'd th' appearance of a shooting star!
The playful Gossimer supplied the sail,
Swell'd by the pressure of the panting gale:
The deck was peopled by a sprightly band,
The little progeny from fairy land!

The scene now chang'd—the mountain heav'd groan,
The bending forest breath'd a sullen moan:
When lo three Lapland hags, self-pois'd on high,
Of hideous aspect, struck the wond'ring eye!
Their implements of art aloft they bear,
And (like the low'ring cloud that loads the air)
They spread the texture of the fatal loom,
While grim night blackens to a deeper gloom.

These forms were welcom'd, as they pass'd along,
By savage howlings of the wolf-dog throng.
Disastrous ravens to this groupe repair,
And bats, the fiends that haunt the darken'd air;
And owls the groupe pursue with heavy flight,
Prophets of woe, and harpies of the night;
And they who 'midst the storm exulting soar,
And they whose talons reek with infants' gore.

See from their height the haggard shapes descend,
And to the ocean's shore their footsteps bend;
Where cavern'd deep in conclave dim they dwell,
There utter the dread curse, there breathe the spell!
Hostile to man, their machinations frame,
And act the unhallow'd deed without a name.

Thus have we sketch'd, with faint imperfect hand,
The forms that peopled the poetic land,
Aerial forms (by glowing fiction dress'd)
Who rais'd to joy, or aw'd the human breast.

At length, these visions fading on the sight,
A new creation rose at once to light;
As from a gulph the new creation sprung,
On which the classic beams their splendor flung;
While on the land which late we wander'd o'er,
Where wild invention watch'd her growing store,
Where (thro' rich vales) with swelling surges bold,
The flood of poetry resistless roll'd!
O'er which the glist'ning rays of fancy play'd,
And near whose banks the human passions stray'd,
On this rude scene of wonder and delight,
In evil moment rush'd eternal night.

Queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet.

See Henry the VIth. the death of Cardinal Beauford.

The whistler shrill, that whoso hears doth dy.
Spenser, Canto 12. B. 2d.

The time has been my senses would have cool'd to hear a night-shriek. Macbeth, Act v. Scene 5.

The university of Copenhagen was founded by Christien, who died 1481. —Mallet's History of Denmark, vol. vi. p. 443.