Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/616

 600 ALBERT > 3UTLIFFE. [1850-60. The grand, world-crowning Himalay, The sunshine in the streets of Rome Cloud-girdled underneath its snows ; Is stained with blood ; the trumpet Far down, the enamored bulbul wooes sounds. His own deep-hearted rose. And o'er the Coliseum's sand The nervy lion bounds. My hasty sails are fancy-blown ; I trace the huge unshaded Nile, The elder Brutus stands apart, From springs in Ethiop lands remote. With heel firm-pressed, as if he trod Past cabalistic pile, The father underneath his feet ; Stern-faced like any god. Past questioning sphinx, 'mid wastes of sand, The younger Brutus, musing late, And carven temple, dark and dread, Vexed by his foe's intrusive shade. With old-world theories overgrown, Looks grandly soulful through the mist Deep-graven, but all dead : The ebbing years have made. The wonder of the pyramids, And Coriolanus, browed with scorn, Clear-cut upon the desert line, With curling lip and haughty soul, Relics of Isis, and the days Watches the wild plebeian surge. When Nature was divine. Like restless sea waves roll. Again away ; through polar night In intervals of soothing rest The white bear o'er the ice-field steals, I turn the poet's charmed leaves ; And reddening in the polar light, Through bowers and groves of sweetest The iceberg snaps and reels. song The wind of autumn grieves. The huge whale spouts upon the lee ; Far off the hutted Esquimaux 'Mid grots, and blissful silences, Their hardy coursers drive with speed. The poet's voice falls still and clear, Across the wastes of snow. With note of hopeful prophecy. Or warning voice of fear, — I turn the dark, historic page ; The weary present fades away. Or still small voice of sympathy, And lofty-pillared Greece and Rome Impassioned with human woe. Are cities of to-day. Falling upon the marble heart Like fire flakes upon snow. On miracles of classic art The southern splendors glance and Thus do I burst the intrenched hills, ■ gleam ; These cerements of useless clay, On Plato, with great thought and heart, And, like the fantasy of dreams. In groves of Academe ; All things around me play ; On Grecian fleet by Salamis ; Until the hills re-gather shape. On bust and nymph of peerless grace ; The shadows creep, the slow dews fall. On fountain, plinth, and peristyle, The sky re-opens holy eyes, And leering cynic's face. And sparkles over all.