heart,
  When one among the prime of these rose up,—­
  One, of whose name from childhood we had heard 495
  Familiarly, a household term, like those,
  The Bedfords, Glosters, Salsburys, of old
  Whom the fifth Harry talks of. [Y] Silence! hush! 
  This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,
  No stammerer of a minute, painfully 500
  Delivered.  No! the Orator hath yoked
  The Hours, like young Aurora, to his car: 
  Thrice welcome Presence! how can patience e’er
  Grow weary of attending on a track
  That kindles with such glory!  All are charmed, 505
  Astonished; like a hero in romance,
  He winds away his never-ending horn;
  Words follow words, sense seems to follow sense: 
  What memory and what logic! till the strain
  Transcendent, superhuman as it seemed, 510
  Grows tedious even in a young man’s ear.

    Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced
  By specious wonders, and too slow to tell
  Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men,
  Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides, 515
  And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught,
  Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue—­
  Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave. 
  I see him,—­old, but Vigorous in age,—­
  Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start 520
  Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe
  The younger brethren of the grove.  But some—­
  While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
  Against all systems built on abstract rights,
  Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims 525
  Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;
  Declares the vital power of social ties
  Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain,
  Exploding upstart Theory, insists
  Upon the allegiance to which men are born—­530
  Some—­say at once a froward multitude—­
  Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved)
  As the winds fret within the AEolian cave,
  Galled by their monarch’s chain.  The times were big
  With ominous change, which, night by night, provoked 535
  Keen struggles, and black clouds of passion raised;
  But memorable moments intervened,
  When Wisdom, like the Goddess from Jove’s brain,
  Broke forth in armour of resplendent words,
  Startling the Synod.  Could a youth, and one 540
  In ancient story versed, whose breast had heaved
  Under the weight of classic eloquence,
  Sit, see, and hear, unthankful, uninspired?