University of Virginia Library

GREAT LOCALITIES. AN ASPIRATION.

Oft do I muse in castle-building hours—
O! might some trick o' the air advance the hill
Of Sion westward, I would gaze my fill
Upon her far-projected walls and towers!
O! that the realms our rounded earth doth hide,
Could, maugre all the horizons, be displayed
To my rapt eyes and heart—o'er land and tide
By some intense refractive power conveyed!
For I am bound by duties and constraints
To mine own land, or move in modest round
Among my neighbours; tho' my spirit faints
And hungers for the storied eastern ground:
Cease, dreamer! is it fit the laws of space
And vision should be strained to meet thy case?
But, if it were, how soon Jerusalem
Should front my homestead with her mountain-hold!
And ever-listening hills of Bethlehem
Report themselves in colours clear and bold!
Then would I summon here old Cheops' tomb,
With its broad base to flank my bordering wood—
A mighty phantom! pressing for the room
It holds in Egypt! next, with change of mood,
Fair Athens should be welcomed, and the rest
Of those immortal cities, one by one;
And, for my latest atmospheric guest,
I'd bid that crumbled mound from Babylon
Come looming up at sundown, with the moan
Of evening winds, and shadows from the west.
Nor—could I bring within my visual scope
The great localities old stories boast—
Would I forget thee, Troas! whose first hope
Of travel pointed to thy lonely coast;
How would my quicken'd fancy reproduce
Th' incessant brazen flash of Homer's war,
And heroes moving quick their ground to choose,
With spear-tops burning like the autumn star,
Along that sullen sea-board! till, at length,
Mine ear should thrill, my startled pulses bound,
When from the trench those two grand voices rose—
And each involved in th' other, swept their foes
Before them, like a storm—the wrath and strength
Of God and man conspiring to the sound!