Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
On a Falling Group in the Last Judgment of Michael AngeloWashington Allston (1779–1843)
H
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!
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,
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!