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XII. His thoughts explored the past—and where were they, The chiefs of men, the mighty ones gone by? He turn'd—a boundless void before him lay, Wrapp'd in the shadows of futurity. How knew the child of Nature that the flame He felt within him struggling to ascend, Should perish not with that terrestrial frame Doom'd with the earth on which it moved, to blend? How, when affliction bade his spirit bleed, If 'twere a Father's love or Tyrant's wrath decreed?

XIII. Oh! marvel not if then he sought to trace In all sublimities of sight and sound, In rushing winds that wander through all space, Or midst deep woods, with holy gloom embrown'd, The oracles of Fate! or if the train Of floating forms that throng the world of sleep, And sounds that vibrate on the slumberer's brain, When mortal voices rest in stillness deep, Were deem'd mysterious revelations, sent From viewless powers, the lords of each dread element.

XIV. Was not wild Nature, in that elder-time, Clothed with a deeper power?—earth’s wandering race, Exploring realms of solitude sublime, Not as we see, beheld her awful face! Art had not tamed the mighty scenes which met Their searching eyes; unpeopled kingdoms lay In savage pomp before them—all was yet Silent and vast, but not as in decay; And the bright daystar, from his burning throne, Look'd o'er a thousand shores, untrodden, voiceless, lone.

XV. The forests in their dark luxuriance waved, With all their swell of strange Æolian sound; The fearful deep, sole region ne'er enslaved, Heaved, in its pomp of terror, darkly round. Then, brooding o'er the images, imprest By forms of grandeur thronging on his eye, And faint traditions, guarded in his breast, Midst dim remembrances of infancy, Man shaped unearthly presences, in dreams, Peopling each wilder haunt of mountains, groves, and streams.