nd gneis, and schorl!
But let us learn of this same troglodyte,[9]
Who guides us through the winding labyrinth,
The erudite "Professor" of the cave,
Not of the college; stagyrite of bones. 110
He leads, with flickering candle, through the heaps
Himself has piled, and placed in various forms,
Grotesque arrangement, while the cave itself
Seems but his element of breathing! Look! 114
This humereus is that of the wild ox.
The very candle, as with sympathy,
Flares while he speaks, in glimmering wonderment!
But who can mark these visible remains,
Nor pause to think how awful, and how true,
The dread event they speak! What monuments 120
Hath man, since then, the lord, the emmet, raised
On earth! He hath built pyramids, and said,
Stand there! and in their solitude they stood,
Whilst, like the camel's shadow on the sands
Beneath them years and ages passed. He said,
My name shall never die! and like the God
Of silence,[10] with his finger on his lip,
Oblivion mocked, then pointed to a tomb,
'Mid vast and winding vaults, without a name.
Where art thou, Thebes? The chambers of the dead 130
Echo, Behold! and twice ten thousand men,
Even in their march of rapine and of blood,
Involuntary halted,[11] at the sight
Of thy majestic wreck, for many, a league--
Sphynxes, colossal fanes, and obelisks--
Pale in the morning sun! Ambition sighed
A moment, and passed on. In this rude isle,
The Druid altars frowned; and still they stand,
As silent as the barrows at their feet,
Yet tell the same stern tale. Soldier of Rome, 140
Art thou come hither to this land remote
Hid in the ocean-waste? Thy chariot wheels
Rung on that road below![12]--Cohorts, and turms,
With their centurions, in long file appear,
Their golden eagles glittering to the sun,
O'er the last line of spears; and standard-flags 146
Wave, and the trumpets sounding to advance,
And shields, and helms, and crests, and chariots, mark
The glorious march of Caesar's soldiery,
Firing the gray horizon! They are passed! 150
And, like a gleam of glory, perishing,
Leave but a name behind! So passes man,
An armed spectre o'er a field of blood,
And vanishes; and other armed shades
Pass by,