Bright with stern beauty, breathing wrathful fire. In all the grandeur of celestial ire, Once more thine own, th’ immortal Archer’s form Sheds radiance round, with more than Being warm! Oh! who could view, nor deem that perfect frame A living temple of ethereal flame? Lord of the daystar! how may words portray Of thy chaste glory one reflected ray? Whate’er the soul could dream, the hand could trace, Of regal dignity and heavenly grace; Each purer effluence of the fair and bright, Whose fitful gleams have broke on mortal sight Each bold idea, borrow’d from the sky, To vest th’ embodied form of Deity; All, all in thee, ennobled and refined, Breathe and enchant, transcendently combined! Son of Elysium! years and ages gone Have bow’d in speechless homage at thy throne, And days unborn, and nations yet to be, Shall gaze, absorb’d in ecstasy, on thee! And thou, triumphant wreck,[6] e’en yet sublime, Disputed trophy, claimed by Art and time: Hail to that scene again, where Genius caught From thee its fervours of diviner thought! Where He, th’ inspired One, whose gigantic mind Lived in some sphere to him alone assign’d; Who from the past, the future, and th’ unseen Could call up forms of more than earthly mien: Unrivall’d Angelo on thee would gaze, Till his full soul imbibed perfection’s blaze! And who but he, that Prince of Art, might dare Thy sovereign greatness view without despair? Emblem of Rome! from power’s meridian hurl’d, Yet claiming still the homage of the world. What hadst thou been, ere barbarous hands defaced The work of wonder, idolised by taste? Oh! worthy still of some divine abode, Mould of a Conqueror! ruin of a God![7] Still, like some broken gem, whose quenchless beam From each bright fragment pours its vital stream, ’Tis thine, by fate unconquer’d, to dispense From every part some ray of excellence! E’en yet, inform’d with essence from on high, Thine is no trace of frail mortality! Within that frame a purer being glows, Through viewless veins a brighter current flows; Fill’d with immortal life each muscle swells, In every line supernal grandeur dwells, Consummate work! the noblest and the last Of Grecian Freedom, ere her reign was past:[8] Nurse of the mighty, she, while lingering still, Her mantle flow’d o’er many a classic hill, Ere yet her voice its parting accents breathed, A hero’s image to the world bequeathed; Enshrined in thee th’ imperishable ray Of high-soul’d Genius, foster’d by her sway, And bade thee teach, to ages yet unborn, What lofty dreams were hers--who never shall return!