Behold those broken arches, that oriel all unglazed, That crippled line of columns bleaching in the sun, The delicate shaft stricken midway, and the flying buttress Idly stretching forth to hold up tufted ivy: Thinkest thou the thousand eyes that shine with rapture on a ruin, Would have looked with half their wonder on the perfect pile? And wherefore not--but that light hints, suggesting unseen beauties, Fill the complacent gazer with self-grown conceits? And so, the rapid sketch winneth more praise to the painter, Than the consummate work elaborated on his easel: And so, the Helvetic lion caverned in the living rock Hath more of majesty and force, than it upon a marble pedestal. [Illustration] Tell me, daughter of taste, what hath charmed thine ear in music? Is it the laboured theme, the curious fugue or cento,-- Nor rather the sparkles of intelligence flashing from some strange chord, Or the soft melody of sounds far sweeter for simplicity? Tell me, thou son of science, what hath filled thy mind in reading? Is it the volume of detail where all is orderly set down, And they that read may run, nor need to stop and think; The book carefully accurate, that counteth thee no better than a fool, Gorging the passive mind with annotated notes;-- Nor rather the half-suggested thoughts, the riddles thou mayst solve, The fair ideas, coyly peeping like young loves out of roses, The quaint arabesque conceptions, half cherub and half flower, The light analogy, or deep allusion, trusted to thy learning, The confidence implied in thy skill to unravel meaning mysteries? For ideas are ofttimes shy of the close furniture of words, And thought, wherein only is power, may be best conveyed by a suggestion: The flash that lighteth up a valley, amid the dark midnight of a storm, Coineth the mind with that scene sharper than fifty summers.