O'ershadowing Scotia's desert coast, And, wrapp'd in clouds, in tempests toss'd, While the lone shepherd, near the shipless maint, Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train. II. 1. Thou spakest, and lo! a new creation glow'd. And at its base the trembling nations bow'd. Grasp'd the globe with iron hand. The indignant pyramid sublimely towers, the mind. II. 2. Round their rude ark old Egypt's sorcerers rise! The Fates of the Northern Mythology.-See Mallet's Antiquities. † An allusion to the second sight. See that fine description of the sudden animation of the Palladium, in the second book of the Æneid. The bull, Apis. Clouds of incense woo thy smile, But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee + ! To which the parted soul oft wings her flight; Again to visit her cold cell of clay, [decay! Charm'd with perennial sweets, and smiling at II. 3. On yon hoar summit, mildly bright || High o'er the world the white-robed Magi gaze Start at each blue portentous blaze, Each flame that flits with adverse spire; 'The God! The God!' the Sybil cries. Her figure swells! she foams, she raves! Her figure swells to more than mortal size! The crocodile. ↑ So numerous were the Deities of Egypt, that, according to an ancient proverb, it was in that country less difficult to find a god than a man. The Hieroglyphics. The catacombs, in which the bodies of the earliest generations yet remain without corruption, by virtue of the gums that embalmed them. The Persians,' says Herodotus, reject the use of temples, altars, and statues. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices.' I. 131. The elements, and more particularly fire, were the objects of their religious reverence. An imitation of some wonderful lines in the Iliad. Streams of rapture roll along, Silver notes ascend the skies: Wake, Echo, wake, and catch the song, The Sybil speaks, the dream is o'er, His madding spirit fills her frame, The cavern frowns; its hundred mouths unclose! And, in the thunder's voice, the fate of empire flows. III. 1. Mona, thy Druid rites awake the dead! Rites that have chain'd old Ocean on his bed. Pointless falls the hero's lance. Thy magic bids the imperial eagle fly*, roar; Chased by the morn from Snowdon's awful brow, Where late she sat and scowl'd on the black wave below. See Tacitus, 1. xiv. c. 29. III. 2. Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears! And mow through infancy and age; In cloister'd solitude she sits and sighs, The weak wan votarist leaves her twilight cell, fire. III. 3. Lord of each pang the nerves can feel, Canst thou, with all thy terrors crown'd, * This remarkable event happened at the siege and sack of Jerusalem, in the last year of the eleventh century. Hume, 1. 221. Flush'd with youth, her looks impart Each fine feeling as it flows; She smiles! and where is now the cloud Her touch unlocks the dayspring from above, And lo! it visits man with beams of light and love. ROGERS. FRANCE. YE clouds! that far above me float and pause, Ye woods that listen to the night-bird's singing, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I 'wound, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! |