| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | On a Falling Group in the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo | | By Washington Allston (1779–1843) |
| | | HOW vast, how dread, o’erwhelming, is the thought | |
| Of space interminable! to the soul | |
| A circling weight that crushes into naught | |
| Her mighty faculties! a wondrous whole, | |
| Without or parts, beginning, or an end! | 5 |
| How fearful, then, on desperate wings to send | |
| The fancy e’en amid the waste profound! | |
| Yet, born as if all daring to astound, | |
| Thy giant hand, O Angelo, hath hurled | |
| E’en human forms, with all their mortal weight, | 10 |
| Down the dread void,—fall endless as their fate! | |
| Already now they seem from world to world | |
| For ages thrown; yet doomed, another past, | |
| Another still to reach, nor e’er to reach the last! | | | | |
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