And o'er the altered scene Calantha's eye Roves listless--yet Time's Great the passers by! Along the road still fleet the men whose names Live in the talk the moment's glory claims. There, for the hot Pancratia of Debate Pass the keen wrestlers for that palm,--the State. Now, "on his humble but his faithful steed," Sir Robert rides--he never rides at speed-- Careful his seat, and circumspect his gaze; And still the cautious trot the cautious mind betrays. Wise is thy heed!--how stout soe'er his back, Thy weight has oft proved fatal to thy hack![G] Next, with loose rein and careless canter view Our man of men, the Prince of Waterloo; O'er the firm brow the hat as firmly press'd, The firm shape rigid in the button'd vest; Within--the iron which the fire has proved, And the close Sparta of a mind unmoved! Not his the wealth to some large natures lent, Divinely lavish, even where misspent, That liberal sunshine of exuberant soul, Thought, sense, affection, warming up the whole; The heat and affluence of a genial power, Rank in the weed as vivid in the flower; Hush'd at command his veriest passions halt, Drill'd is each virtue, disciplined each fault; Warm if his blood--he reasons while he glows, Admits the pleasure--ne'er the folly knows; If Vulcan for our Mars a snare had set, He had won the Venus, but escaped the net; His eye ne'er wrong, if circumscribed the sight, Widen the prospect and it ne'er is right, Seen through the telescope of habit still, States seem a camp, and all the world--a drill! Yet oh, how few his faults, how pure his mind, Beside his fellow-conquerors of mankind; How knightly seems the iron image, shown By Marlborough's tomb, or lost Napoleon's throne! Cold if his lips, no smile of fraud they wear, Stern if his heart, still "Man" is graven there; No guile--no crime his step to greatness made, No freedom trampled, and no trust betray'd; The eternal "I" was not his law--he rose Without one art that honour might oppose, And leaves a human, if a hero's, name, To curb ambition while it lights to fame. But who, scarce less by every gazer eyed, Walks yonder, swinging with a stalwart stride? With that vast bulk of chest and limb assign'd So oft to men who subjugate their kind; So sturdy Cromwell push'd broad-shoulder'd on; So burly Luther breasted Babylon; So brawny Cleon bawl'd his Agora down; And large-limb'd Mahmoud clutch'd a Prophet's crown!