38. The dawn flowed forth, and from its purple fountains I drank those hopes which make the spirit quail, As to the plain between the misty mountains _2055 And the great City, with a countenance pale, I went:--it was a sight which might avail To make men weep exulting tears, for whom Now first from human power the reverend veil Was torn, to see Earth from her general womb _2060 Pour forth her swarming sons to a fraternal doom: 39. To see, far glancing in the misty morning, The signs of that innumerable host; To hear one sound of many made, the warning Of Earth to Heaven from its free children tossed, _2065 While the eternal hills, and the sea lost In wavering light, and, starring the blue sky The city's myriad spires of gold, almost With human joy made mute society-- Its witnesses with men who must hereafter be. _2070 40. To see, like some vast island from the Ocean, The Altar of the Federation rear Its pile i' the midst; a work, which the devotion Of millions in one night created there, Sudden as when the moonrise makes appear _2075 Strange clouds in the east; a marble pyramid Distinct with steps: that mighty shape did wear The light of genius; its still shadow hid Far ships: to know its height the morning mists forbid! 41. To hear the restless multitudes for ever _2080 Around the base of that great Altar flow, As on some mountain-islet burst and shiver Atlantic waves; and solemnly and slow As the wind bore that tumult to and fro, To feel the dreamlike music, which did swim _2085 Like beams through floating clouds on waves below Falling in pauses, from that Altar dim, As silver-sounding tongues breathed an aerial hymn. 42. To hear, to see, to live, was on that morn Lethean joy! so that all those assembled _2090 Cast off their memories of the past outworn; Two only bosoms with their own life trembled, And mine was one,--and we had both dissembled; So with a beating heart I went, and one, Who having much, covets yet more, resembled; _2095 A lost and dear possession, which not won, He walks in lonely gloom beneath the noonday sun. 43. To the great Pyramid I came: its stair With female choirs was thronged: the loveliest Among the free, grouped with its sculptures rare; _2100 As I approached, the morning's golden mist, Which now the wonder-stricken breezes kissed With their cold lips, fled, and the summit shone Like Athos seen from Samothracia, dressed In earliest light, by vintagers, and one _2105 Sate there, a female Shape upon an ivory throne: