ll they drank the poison of power, the Circe-cup of command,
And the face of Liberty fail'd, and the sword was snatch'd from her hand.
Now Law 'neath the scaffold cowers, and,--shame engendering shame,--
The hell-pack of war is laid close on the land for ruin and flame.
For as things most holy are worst, from holiness when they decline,
So Law, in the name of law once outraged, demon-divine,
Swoops back as Anarchy arm'd, and maddens her lovers of yore,
Changed from their former selves, and clothed in the chrisom of gore.
Then Falkland and Hampden are gone; and darker counsels arise;
Vane with his tortuous soul, through over-wisdom unwise;
Pym, deep stately designer, the subtle in simple disguised,
Artist in plots, projector of panics he used, and despised!
--But as, in the mountain world, where the giants each lift up their horn
To the skies defiant and pale, and our littleness measure and scorn,
Frowning-out from their far-off summits: and eye and mind may not know
Which is hugest, where all are huge: But, as from the region we go
Receding, the Titan of Titans comes forth, and above him the sky
Is deepest: and lo!--'tis the White One, the Monarch!--He mounts, as we
fly!
Or as over the sea the gay ships and the dolphins glisten and flit,
And then that Leviathan comes, and takes his pastime in it;
And wherever he ploughs his dark road, they must sink or follow him
still,
For his is the bulkiest strength, the proud and paramount will!
--Thou wast great, O King! (for we grudge not the style thou didst yearn-
for in vain,
But a river of blood was between and an ineffaceable stain),
Great with an earth-born greatness; a Titan of awe, not of love;
'Twas strength and subtlety balanced; the wisdom not from above.
For he leant o'er his own deep soul, oracular; over the pit
As the Pythia throned her of old, where the rock in Delphi was split;
And the vapour and echo within he mis-held for divine; and the land
Heard and obey'd, unwillingly willing, the voice of command.
--Soaring enormous soul, that to height o'er the highest aspires;
All that the man can seize being nought to what he desires!
And as, in a palace nurtured, the child to courtesy grows,
Becoming at last what it acts; so man on himself can impose,
Drill and accustom himself to humility, till, like an art,
The lesson the fingers have learn'd appears the command of the heart;
Whilst pride, as the snake at the charmer's command, coils low in its
place,
And he wears