O’er solid seas, where Winter reigns, And holds each mountain-wave in chains, The fur-clad savage, ere he guides his deer[4] By glistering star-light thro’ the snow, Breathes softly in her wondering ear Each potent spell thou bad’st him know. By thee inspir’d, on India’s sands,[5] Full in the sun the Bramin stands; And, while the panting tigress hies To quench her fever in the stream, His spirit laughs in agonies,[6] Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam. Mark who mounts the sacred pyre, Blooming in her bridal vest: She hurls the torch! she fans the fire! To die is to be blest:[7] She clasps her lord to part no more, And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar. O’ershadowing Scotia’s desert coast, The Sisters sail in dusky state,[8] And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost, Weave the airy web of fate; While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,[9] Sees o’er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train. II. 1. Thou spak’st, and lo! a new creation glow’d. Each unhewn mass of living stone Was clad in horrors not its own, And at its base the trembling nations bow’d. Giant Error, darkly grand, Grasp’d the globe with iron hand. Circled with seats of bliss, the Lord of Light Saw prostrate worlds adore his golden height. The statue, waking with immortal powers,[10] Springs from its parent earth, and shakes the spheres; The indignant pyramid sublimely towers, And braves the efforts of a host of years. Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind; And bright-ey’d Painting stamps the image of the mind. II. 2. Round their rude ark old Egypt’s sorcerers rise! A timbrell’d anthem swells the gale, And bids the God of Thunders hail;[11] With lowings loud the captive God replies. Clouds of incense woo thy smile, Scaly monarch of the Nile![12] But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee?[13] Go, count the busy drops that swell the sea. Proud land! what eye can trace thy mystic lore, Lock’d up in characters as dark as night?[14] What eye those long, long labyrinths dare explore,[15] To which the parted soul oft wings her flight; Again to visit her cold cell of clay, Charm’d with perennial sweets, and smiling at decay? II. 3.