death dirge of the melancholy wind:
     It were a sight of awfulness to see
     The works of faith and slavery, so vast,                    505
     So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing!
     Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall.
     A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death
     To-day, the breathing marble glows above
     To decorate its memory, and tongues                         510
     Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms
     In silence and in darkness seize their prey.
     These ruins soon leave not a wreck behind:
     Their elements, wide-scattered o'er the globe,
     To happier shapes are moulded, and become                   515
     Ministrant to all blissful impulses:
     Thus human things are perfected, and earth,
     Even as a child beneath its mother's love,
     Is strengthened in all excellence, and grows
     Fairer and nobler with each passing year.                   520

       Now Time his dusky pennons o'er the scene
     Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past
     Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:
     Thy lore is learned. Earth's wonders are thine own,
     With all the fear and all the hope they bring.              525
     My spells are past: the present now recurs.
     Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains
     Yet unsubdued by man's reclaiming hand.

       Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,
     Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue                      530
     The gradual paths of an aspiring change:
     For birth and life and death, and that strange state
     Before the naked powers that thro' the world
     Wander like winds have found a human home,
     All tend to perfect happiness, and urge                     535
     The restless wheels of being on their way,
     Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,
     Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal:
     For birth but wakes the universal mind
     Whose mighty streams might else in silence flow             540
     Thro' the vast world, to individual sense
     Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape
     New modes of passion to its frame may lend;
     Life is its state of action, and the store
     Of all events is aggregated there                           545
     That variegate the eternal universe;
     Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,
     That leads to azure isles and beaming skies
     And happy regions of eternal hope.
     Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on:                    550
     Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk,
     Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,
     Yet spring's awakening breath will woo the earth,
     To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,
     That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,              555
     Lighting the green wood with its sunny smile.

       Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand,
     So welcome when the tyrant is awake,
     So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch flares;
     'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,                     560
     The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep.
     For what thou art shall perish utterly,
     But what is thine may never cease to be;
     Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen
     Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,               565