The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty, That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and wat'ry depths; all these have vanished. They live no longer in the faith of reason! But still the heart doth need a language, still Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, And to yon starry world they now are gone, Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth With man as with their friend; and to the lover Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky Shoot influence down: and even at this day 'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great, And Venus who brings everything that's fair! ED. ] ODE Composed 1816.--Published 1816 Included in 1820 among the "Poems of the Imagination," afterwards placed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."--ED. I Who rises on the banks of Seine, And binds her temples with the civic wreath? What joy to read the promise of her mien! How sweet to rest her wide-spread wings beneath! But they are ever playing, 5 And twinkling in the light, And, if a breeze be straying, That breeze she will invite; And stands on tiptoe, conscious she is fair, And calls a look of love into her face, 10 And spreads her arms, as if the general air Alone could satisfy her wide embrace. --Melt, Principalities, before her melt! Her love ye hailed--her wrath have felt! But She through many a change of form hath gone, 15 And stands amidst you now an armèd creature, Whose panoply is not a thing put on, But the live scales of a portentous nature; That, having forced[154] its way from birth to birth, 19 Stalks round-abhorred by Heaven, a terror to the Earth! II I marked the breathings of her dragon crest; My Soul, a sorrowful interpreter, In many a midnight vision bowed Before the ominous aspect of her spear;[155] Whether the mighty beam, in scorn upheld, 25 Threatened her foes,--or, pompously at rest, Seemed to bisect her orbèd shield, As stretches a blue bar of solid cloud[156] Across the setting sun and all the fiery west.[157] III