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How more than strange, how marvellous a sight To the new comers was this multitude! Something like fear was mingled with affright When they the busy scene of turmoil view'd. Wonder itself the sense of joy subdued And with its all-unwonted weight opprest These children of the quiet solitude; And now and then a sigh that heaved the breast Unconsciously bewray'd their feeling of unrest.

Not more prodigious than that little town Seem'd to these comers, were the pomp and power To us, of ancient Rome in her renown; Nor the elder Babylon, or e'er that hour When her high gardens, and her cloud-capt tower, And her broad walls before the Persian fell; Nor those dread fanes on Nile's forsaken shore Whose ruins yet their pristine grandeur tell. Wherein the demon gods themselves might deign to dwell.