'Twere sad to see from those stern eyes Th' unheeded anguish feebly flow; And hear the broken word that dies In moanings faint and low;-- But sadder still to mark the while, The vacant stare--the marble smile, And think, that goal of glory won. How slight a shade between The idiot moping in the sun And England's giant Queen![G] V. Call back the joyous Past! Lo, England white-robed for a holyday! While, choral to the clarion's kingly blast, Shout peals on shout along the Virgin's way, As through the swarming streets rolls on the long array. Mary is dead!--Look from your fire-won homes, Exulting Martyrs!--on the mount shall rest Truth's ark at last! th' avenging Lutheran comes And clasps THE BOOK ye died for to her breast![H] With her, the flower of all the Land, The high-born gallants ride, And ever nearest of the band, With watchful eye and ready hand, Young Dudley's form of pride![I] Ah, ev'n in that exulting hour, Love half allures the soul from Power,-- To that dread brow in bending down Throbs up, beneath the manlike crown, The woman's heart wild beating, While steals the whisper'd worship, paid Not to the Monarch, but the Maid, Through tromps and stormy greeting. VI. Call back the gorgeous Past! The lists are set, the trumpets sound, Still as the stars, when to the breeze Sway the proud crests of stately trees, Bright eyes, from tier on tier around, Look down, where on its famous ground Murmurs and moves the bristling life Of antique Chivalry! "Forward!"[J]--the signal word is given-- Like cloud on cloud by tempest driven; Steel lightens, and arm'd thunders close! How plumes descend in flakes of snows; How the ground reels, as reels a sea, Beneath the inebriate rapture-strife Of jocund Chivalry! Who is the Victor of the Day? Thou of the delicate form and golden hair And Manhood glorious in its midst of May;-- Thou who, upon thy shield of argent, bearest The bold device, "The Loftiest is the Fairest!" As bending low thy stainless crest, "The Vestal throned by the West" Accords the old Provencal crown Which blends her own with thy renown;-- Arcadian Sidney--Nursling of the Muse, Flower of divine Romance,[K] whose bloom was fed By daintiest Helicon's most silver dews, Alas! how soon thy lovely leaves were shed-- Thee lost, no more were Grace and Force united, Grace but some flaunting Buckingham unmann'd, And Force but crush'd what Freedom vainly righted-- Behind, lo Cromwell looms, and dusks the land With the swart shadow of his giant hand. VII.