’The world, and lost all that it did contain
Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more
Of fame and peace than virtue’s self can gain 220

’Without the opportunity which bore
Him on its eagle pinions to the peak
From which a thousand climbers have before

’Fallen, as Napoleon fell.’—­I felt my cheek
Alter, to see the shadow pass away, 225
Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;
And much I grieved to think how power and will
In opposition rule our mortal day,

And why God made irreconcilable 230
Good and the means of good; and for despair
I half disdained mine eyes’ desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that were
And scarce have ceased to be.—­’Dost thou behold,’
Said my guide, ’those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, 235

’Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold,
And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage—­
names which the world thinks always old,

’For in the battle Life and they did wage,
She remained conqueror.  I was overcome 240
By my own heart alone, which neither age,

’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