Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/308

270 Lies chained to his lone rock by the sea-shore?

So be it: we can bear.—But thus all they

Whose Intellect is an o'ermastering Power

Which still recoils from its encumbering clay

Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The form which their creations may essay,

Are bards; the kindled Marble's bust may wear

More poesy upon its speaking brow

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear;

One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,

Or deify the canvass till it shine

With beauty so surpassing all below,

That they who kneel to Idols so divine

Break no commandment, for high Heaven is there

Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

Of Poesy, which peoples but the air

With Thought and Beings of our thought reflected,

Can do no more: then let the artist share

The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected

Faints o'er the labour unapproved—Alas!

Despair and Genius are too oft connected.

Within the ages which before me pass

Art shall resume and equal even the sway

Which with Apelles and old Phidias

She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.

Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive

The Grecian forms at least from their decay,

And Roman souls at last again shall live

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,

And temples, loftier than the old temples, give

New wonders to the World; and while still stands

The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar

A Dome, its image, while the base expands