Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/328

282 If on the marble’s sleeping forms he breathe, To life they start the chisel’s touch beneath: In Phaedra, Tancred, Zorayde he wrings The heart within us deep; or softly brings Love-fraught delight, as do their strains inspire Anacreon, or Tibullus, or the lyre Of our Melendez, sweetest languishings. Or wrapt in thunder snatches us away With Pindar, or Herrera, or thy lay, Illustrious Quintana! .to the heights, Where virtue, and where glory too invites. By him compels us Tasso to admire Clorinda ; Homer ﬁerce Achilles’ ire; And Milton, elevated all beyond, His direful angel, arm’ d of diamond. O’er all, though invisible, this spirit dwells; But from ethereal mansions he descends To show himself to men, and thus portends His steps the night rain, and the thunder tells. There have I seen him: or perhaps serene In the sun’s beam, he wanders to o’erﬂow Heaven, earth and sea, in waves of golden glow. On music’s accent trembles he unseen; And solitude he loves, he lists attent The waters’ rush in headlong fury sent: