Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/95

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“Perish! let there only be
“Floating o’er thy hearthless sea,
“As the garment of thy sky
“Clothes the world immortally,
“One remembrance more sublime
“Than the tattered pall of Time,
“Which scarce hides thy visage wan;
“That a tempest-cleaving swan
“ Of the songs of Albion,
“Driven from his ancestral streams
“ By the might of evil dreams,
“Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
“Welcomed him with such emotion
“That its joy grew his, and sprung
“From his lips like music flung
“O’er a mighty thunder-fit
“Chastening terror;—What though yet
“ Poesy’s unfailing river,
“Which through Albion winds for ever
“ Lashing with melodious wave
“ Many a sacred poet’s grave,
“ Mourn its latest nursling fled!
“What though thou, with all thy dead,
“ Scarce can for this fame repay
“ Aught thine own;—oh, rather say
“ Though thy sins and slaveries foul
“ Overcloud a sun-like soul!
“ As the ghost of Homer clings
“ Round Scamander’s wasting springs;
“ As divinest Shakspeare’s might
“ Fills Avon and the world with light;
“ Like omniscient power, which he
“ Imaged ’mid mortality:
“ As the love from Petrarch’s urn
“ Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
“A quenchless lamp by which the heart
“ Sees things unearthly; so thou art,
“ Mighty spirit; so shall be
“ The city that did refuge thee.”