University of Virginia Library

VII.

Like ocean's billows seemed, ere this, the plain,
Confusedly heaving with a sumless host
From earth's and time's remotest bounds: a roar
Went up before the multitude, whose course
The unfurled banner guided, and the bow,
Zone of the universe, athwart the zenith
Sweeping its arch. In one vast conflux rolled,
Wave following wave, were men of every age,
Nation, and tongue; all heard the warning blast,
And, led by wondrous impulse, hither came.
Mingled in wild confusion, now, those met
In distant ages born. Gray forms, that lived
When Time himself was young, whose temples shook
The hoary honors of a thousand years,
Stood side by side with Roman Consuls:—here,
'Mid Prophets old, and Heaven-inspired Bards,
Were Grecian heroes seen:—there, from a crowd
Of reverend Patriarchs, towered the nodding plumes,
Tiars, and helms, and sparkling diadems
Of Persia's, Egypt's, or Assyria's Kings;
Clad as when forth the hundred gates of Thebes
On sounding cars her hundred Princes rushed;
Or, when, at night, from off the terrace top
Of his aërial garden, touched to soothe
The troubled Monarch, came the solemn chime
Of sackbut, psaltery, and harp, adown
The Euphrates, floating in the moonlight wide
O'er sleeping Babylon. For all appeared
As in their days of earthly pride; the clank
Of steel announced the Warrior, and the robe
Of Tyrian lustre spoke the blood of Kings.
Though on the Angels while I gazed, their names
Appeared not, yet amongst the mortal throng
(Capricious power of dreams!) familiar seemed
Each countenance, and every name well known.