Page:Rosalind and Helen (Shelley, Forman).djvu/63

Rh Aught thine own? oh, rather say, Though thy sins and slaveries foul Overcloud a sunlike soul? As the ghost of Homer clings Round Scamander's wasting springs; As divinest Shakespeare'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.

Lo, the sun floats up the sky Like thought-wingèd Liberty, Till the universal light Seems to level plain and height; From the sea a mist has spread, And the beams of morn lie dead On the towers of Venice now, Like its glory long ago. By the skirts of that grey cloud Many-domèd Padua proud Stands, a peopled solitude, 'Mid the harvest-shining plain, Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe, And the milk-white oxen slow