Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear Their portion of the toil, which he of old Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem Which an old chesnut flung athwart the steep Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head, When a strange trance over my fancy grew Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread Was so transparent that the scene came through That I had felt the freshness of that dawn Bathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair And sat as thus upon that slope of lawn Under the self-same bough, and heard as there The birds, the fountains, and the ocean hold Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air, And then a vision on my brain was rolled. As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream Of people there was hurrying to and fro, Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam, All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know Whither he went, or whence he came, or why He made one of the multitude, and so Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky One of the million leaves of summer's bier; Old age and youth, manhood and infancy, Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear: And others as with steps towards the tomb, And others mournfully within the gloom Of their own shadow walked and called it death; But more, with motions which each other crost, Pursued or spurned the shadows the clouds threw, Or birds within the noon-day ether lost, Upon that path where flowers never grew,— And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst, Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew Out of their mossy cells for ever burst; With overarching elms and caverns cold, [they And violet banks where sweet dreams brood; but Pursued their serious folly as of old. And as I gazed, methought that in the way. And a cold glare intenser than the noon, When on the sunlit limits of the night Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear So came a chariot on the silent storm Beneath a dusky hood and double cape, Was bent, a dun and faint ethereal gloom The guidance of that wonder-winged team; The music of their ever-moving wings. All the four faces of that charioteer Speed in the van and blindness in the rear, Of all that is, has been, or will be dore; The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast, The million with fierce song and maniac dance Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear; Nor wanted here the just similitude Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er The chariot rolled, a captive multitude Was driven;-all those who had grown old in power Or misery, all who had their age subdued By action or by suffering, and whose hour All those whose fame or infamy must grow All but the sacred few who could not tame |