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‘Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb
Could temper to its object.’–‘Let them pass,’
I cried, ‘the world and its mysterious doom

‘Is not so much more glorious than it was, 245
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false and fragile glass

‘As the old faded.’–‘Figures ever new
Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;
We have but thrown, as those before us threw, 250

‘Our shadows on it as it passed away.
But mark how chained to the triumphal chair
The mighty phantoms of an elder day;

‘All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; 255
The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.

‘And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

‘And near him walk the … twain, 260
The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

‘The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; 265

‘The other long outlived both woes and wars,
Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous key of Truth’s eternal doors,

‘If Bacon’s eagle spirit had not lept
Like lightning out of darkness–he compelled 270
The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept

‘To wake, and lead him to the caves that held
The treasure of the secrets of its reign.
See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

‘The passions which they sung, as by their strain 275
May well be known: their living melody
Tempers its own contagion to the vein

‘Of those who are infected with it–I
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
And so my words have seeds of misery– 180

‘Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.’
And then he pointed to a company,

‘Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs
Of Caesar’s crime, from him to Constantine;
The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares 285

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,
And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:
And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and God;
Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, 290
Was worshipped by the world o’er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched–‘Their power was given
But to destroy,’ replied the leader:–‘I
Am one of those who have created, even

‘If it be but a world of agony.’– 295
‘Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?
How did thy course begin?’ I said, ‘and why?

‘Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought–
Speak!’–‘Whence I am, I partly seem to know, 300

‘And how and by what paths I have been brought
To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;–
Why this should be, my mind can compass not;