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I.
FIRST ILLUMINATION
TEMPLE! where Time has wed Eternity, | |
| How beautiful thou art beyond compare, | |
| Now emptied of thy massive majesty, | |
| And made so faery-frail, so faery-fair: | |
| The lineaments that thou art wont to wear | 5 |
| Augustly traced in ponderous masonry, | |
| Lie faint as in a woof of filmy air, | |
| Within their frames of mellow jewelry.— | |
| But yet how sweet the hardly-waking sense, | |
| That when the strength of hours has quenched those gems, | 10 |
| Disparted all those soft-bright diadems,— | |
| Still in the sun thy form will rise supreme | |
| In its own solid clear magnificence, | |
| Divinest substance then, as now divinest dream. | |
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II.
SECOND ILLUMINATION
MY heart was resting with a peaceful gaze, | 15 |
| So peaceful that it seemed I well could die | |
| Entranced before such beauty,—when a cry | |
| Burst from me, and I sunk in dumb amaze: | |
| The molten stars before a withering blaze | |
| Paled to annihilation, and my eye, | 20 |
| Stunned by the splendor, saw against the sky | |
| Nothing but light,—sheer light,—and light’s own haze. | |
| At last that giddying sight took form,—and then | |
| Appeared the stable vision of a crown, | |
| From the black vault by unseen power let down, | 25 |
Cross-topped, thrice girt with flame:—
Cities of men, | |
| Queens of the earth! bow low,—was ever brow | |
| Of mortal birth adorned as Rome is now? | |
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