’Fear not then, Spirit, Death’s disrobing hand,
So welcome when the tyrant is awake,
So welcome when the bigot’s hell-torch burns;
’Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,
The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. 175
Death is no foe to Virtue:  earth has seen
Love’s brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,
Mingling with Freedom’s fadeless laurels there,
And presaging the truth of visioned bliss. 
Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene 180
Of linked and gradual being has confirmed? 
Whose stingings bade thy heart look further still,
When, to the moonlight walk by Henry led,
Sweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death? 
And wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast, 185
Listening supinely to a bigot’s creed,
Or tamely crouching to the tyrant’s rod,
Whose iron thongs are red with human gore? 
Never:  but bravely bearing on, thy will
Is destined an eternal war to wage 190
With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot
The germs of misery from the human heart. 
Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe
The thorny pillow of unhappy crime,
Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, 195
Watching its wanderings as a friend’s disease: 
Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy
Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,
When fenced by power and master of the world. 
Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, 200
Free from heart-withering custom’s cold control,
Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued. 
Earth’s pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,
And therefore art thou worthy of the boon
Which thou hast now received:  Virtue shall keep 205
Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,
And many days of beaming hope shall bless
Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love. 
Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch 210
Light, life and rapture from thy smile.’

The Fairy waves her wand of charm. 
Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car,
That rolled beside the battlement,
Bending her beamy eyes in thankful ness. 215
Again the enchanted steeds were yoked,
Again the burning wheels inflame
The steep descent of Heaven’s untrodden way. 
Fast and far the chariot flew: 
The vast and fiery globes that rolled 220
Around the Fairy’s palace-gate
Lessened by slow degrees and soon appeared
Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs
That there attendant on the solar power
With borrowed light pursued their narrower way. 225

Earth floated then below: 
The chariot paused a moment there;
The Spirit then descended: 
The restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil,
Snuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, 230
Unfurled their pinions to the winds of Heaven.