Strange was the thrill of joy, beyond belief, 42 Sent from the soft touch of those plumes of down! He was not all deserted in his grief, The brows of Fate relax'd their iron frown; And his soul quicken'd to that glorious power Which fronts the future and subdues the hour; The joy it brought, the dove refused to share; 43 As it it felt the tempest in the sky, Trembling, it nestled to its shelter there, Nor lifted to the light its drooping eye. Not, as its wont, to guide it came; but brave With him the ills from which it could not save. Now lost the lovelier features of the land, 44 Dull waves replace the fount, dark pines the bowers, Grey-streeted tombs, far stretch'd on either hand, Rear the dumb city of the Funeral Powers. Massive and huge, behold the dome of dread, Where the stern Death-god frowns above the dead. Hewn from a rock, stand the great columns square, 45 With triglyphs wrought and ponderous pediment; Such as yet greet the musing wanderer, where, Near the old Fane to which Etruria sent Her sovereign twelve, the thick-sown violet blooms, In Castel d'Asso's vale of hero-tombs.[8] Passing a bridge that spann'd the barrier wave, 46 They reach'd the Thebes-like porch;--the Augur here, First entering, leaves the King. Within the nave Now swell the flutes (which went before the bier What time the funeral chaunt of Pagan Rome Knell'd some throne-shatterer to his six-feet home). Jar back the portals--long, in measured line, 47 There stand within the mute Auruspices, In each pale hand a torch; and near the shrine Sit on still thrones, the guardian deities; Here SETHLANS,[9] sovereign of life's fix'd domains-- There fatal NORTHIA with the iron chains. Between the two the Death-god broods sublime; 48 On his pale brow the inexorable peace Which speaks of power beyond the shores of time; Calm, not benign like the sweet gods of Greece,-- Calm as the mystery which in Memphian skies Froze life's warm current from a sphinx's eyes. With many a grausame shape unutterable, 49 Limn'd were the cavernous sepulchral walls; Life-like they stalk'd, the Populace of Hell, Through the pale pomp of Acherontian halls; Distinct as when the Trojan's living breath Vex'd the wide silence in the wastes of death. Shown was the Progress of the guilty Soul 50 From earth's warm threshold to the throne of doom; Here the black genius to the dismal goal Dragg'd the wan spectre from the unshelt'ring tomb; While from the side it never more may warn The better angel, sorrowing, fled forlorn.