III. 1

  Far from the sun and summer-gale,
  In thy green lap was Nature’s darling laid,
  What time, where lucid Avon strayed,
  To him the mighty mother did unveil
  Her awful face:  the dauntless child
  Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled. 
  ‘This pencil take,’ she said, ’whose colours clear
  Richly paint the vernal year. 
  Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! 
  This can unlock the gates of Joy;
  Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,
  Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.’

  III. 2

  Nor second he that rode sublime
  Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
  The secrets of th’ abyss to spy. 
  He passed the flaming bounds of Place and Time: 
  The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
  Where angels tremble while they gaze,
  He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
  Closed his eyes in endless night. 
  Behold where Dryden’s less presumptuous car
  Wide o’er the fields of glory bear
  Two coursers of ethereal race,
  With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace! 
  III. 3

  Hark! his hands the lyre explore: 
  Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o’er,
  Scatters from her pictured urn
  Thoughts that breathe and words that burn. 
  But, ah, ’tis heard no more! 
  O lyre divine, what daring spirit
  Wakes thee now?  Though he inherit
  Nor the pride nor ample pinion
  That the Theban Eagle bear,
  Sailing with supreme dominion
  Through the azure deep of air,
  Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
  Such forms as glitter in the Muse’s ray,
  With orient hues unborrowed of the sun: 
  Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
  Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
  Beneath the good how far—­but far above the great.

  THE BARD

  I. 1

  ’Ruin seize thee, ruthless king! 
  Confusion on thy banners wait;
  Though fanned by conquest’s crimson wing,
  They mock the air with idle state. 
  Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail,
  Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
  To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
  From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears!’
  Such were the sounds that o’er the crested pride
  Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
  As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side
  He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
  Stout Gloucester stood aghast in speechless trance;
  ‘To arms!’ cried Mortimer, and couched his quivering lance.

  I. 2

  On a rock, whose haughty brow
  Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood. 
  Robed in the sable garb of woe,
  With haggard eyes the poet stood
  (Loose his heard and hoary hair
  Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air),
  And with a master’s hand and prophet’s fire
  Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre: 
  ’Hark how each giant oak and desert