At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, lay The dark, fantastic groups,--resumed the way; Before his steps the landscape spreads more free And fresh from man;--ev'n as a broadening sea, When, more and more the harbour left behind, The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind. Behold the sun!--how stately from the East, Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest! Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whom Heaven gives the charge to hallow and illume! How, as he comes,--through the Great Temple, EARTH, Peels the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth! The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging, Through aisled glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing; While, like some soul lifted aloft by love, High and alone the sky-lark halts above, High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn, Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn! He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow, And sees the world at smiling peace below, Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, Desire Of the sad Heart,--the heaven-ascending spire! He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran:-- "How strong, how feeble, is thine art, O Man! Thou coverest Earth with wonders--at thy hand Curbs the meek water, blooms the subject land: Why halts thy magic here?--Why only deck'd Earth's sterile surface, mournful Architect? Why art thou powerless o'er the world within? Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin? Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour, Proclaims thy splendour and attests thy power, Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease?-- Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace! Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife? Why with yon temple so at war the life? Why all so slight the variance, or in grief Or guilt,--the sum of suffering and relief, Between the desert's son whose wild content Redeems no waste, enthralls no element, And ye the Magians?--ye the giant birth Of Lore and Science--Brahmins of the Earth? Behold the calm steer drinking in the stream, Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam. Say, know ye pleasure,--ye, the Eternal Heirs Of stars and spheres--life's calm content, like theirs? Your stores enrich, your powers exalt, the few, And curse the millions wealth and power subdue; And ev'n the few!--what lord of luxury knows The joy in strife, the sweetness in repose, Which bless the houseless Arab?--Still behind } Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind } Droop the dull sails ordain'd to speed the mind. } Increasing wants the sum of care increase, The piled-up knowledge but sepulchres peace, Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate, And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate-- What is your gain?--from each slain instinct springs A hydra passion, poisoning while it stings; Free love, foul lust;--the frank hate's manly strife A plotting mask'd dissimulating life;--