6. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it cannot pass away! The voices of thy bards and sages thunder _80 With an earth-awakening blast Through the caverns of the past: (Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:) A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew, _85 Rending the veil of space and time asunder! One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast With life and love makes chaos ever new, As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. _90 7. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad, She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest From that Elysian food was yet unweaned; And many a deed of terrible uprightness _95 By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. But when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness, And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, _100 Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown _105 8. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, Or utmost islet inaccessible, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, _110 And every Naiad's ice-cold urn, To talk in echoes sad and stern Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. _115 What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep, When from its sea of death, to kill and burn, The Galilean serpent forth did creep, And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. _120 9. A thousand years the Earth cried, 'Where art thou?' And then the shadow of thy coming fell On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow: And many a warrior-peopled citadel. Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, _125 Arose in sacred Italy, Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty; That multitudinous anarchy did sweep And burst around their walls, like idle foam, _130 Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die, With divine wand traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave Heaven's everlasting dome. _135