the ghostly show,
    To find a shade among the sons of woe
    To memory known:  but every trace was lost
    In the dim features of the moving host: 
    Oblivion’s hand had drawn a dark disguise
    O’er their wan lineaments and beamless eyes. 
    At length, a pallid face I seem’d to know;
    Which wore, methought, a lighter mask of woe;
    He call’d me by my name.—­“Behold!” he cried,
    “What plagues the hapless thralls of Love abide!”—­
    “How am I known by thee?” with new surprise
    I cried; “no mark recalls thee to my eyes.”—­
    “Oh, heavy is my load!” he seem’d to say;
    “Through this dark medium no detecting ray
    Assists thy sight; but I, like thee, can boast
    My birth on famed Etruria’s ancient coast.”—­
    The secret which his murky mask conceal’d,
    His well-known voice and Tuscan tongue reveal’d;
    Thence to a lighter station we repair’d,
    And thus the phantom spoke, with mild regard:—­
    “We thought to see thy name with ours enroll’d
    Long since; for oft thy looks this fate foretold.”—­
    “True,” I replied; “but I survived the strife: 
    His arrows reach’d me, but were short of life.”—­
    Pausing, he spoke:—­“A spark to flame will rise,
    And bear thy name in glory to the skies.”—­
    His meaning was obscure, but in my breast
    I felt the substance of his words impress’d,
    As sculptured stone, or monumental brass,
    Keeps the firm record, or heroic face. 
    With youthful ardour new, and hope inspired,
    Quick from my grave companion I required
    The name and fortunes of the passing train. 
    And why in mournful pomp they trod the plain—­
    “Time,” he return’d, “the secret then will show,
    When thou shalt join the retinue of woe: 
    But years shall sprinkle o’er thy locks with gray,
    And alter’d looks the signs of age betray,
    Ere at his powerful touch the fetters fall,
    Which many a moon thy captive limbs shall gall: 
    Yet will I grant thy suit, and give to view
    The various fortunes of the captive crew: 
    But mark their leader first, that chief renown’d—­
    The Power of Love! by every nation own’d. 
    His sway thou soon, as well as we, shalt know,
    Stung to the heart by goads of dulcet woe. 
    In him unthinking youth’s misgovern’d rage,
    Join’d with the cool malignity of age,
    Is known to mingle with insidious guile,
    Deep, deep conceal’d beneath an infant’s smile. 
    The child of slothful ease, and sensual heat—­
    By sweet delirious thoughts, in dark retreat,
    Mature in mischief grown—­he springs away,
    A winged god, and thousands own his sway. 
    Some, as thou seest, are number’d with the dead,
    And some the bitter drops of sorrow shed
    Through lingering life, by viewless tangles bound,
    That link the soul, and chain