But wisest fate says No--
This must not yet be so;
The babe yet lies in smiling infancy
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss.
So both Himself and us to glorify.
Yet first to those ye chained in sleep
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smould'ring clouds out-brake;
The aged earth, aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake--
When, at the world's last session,
The dreadful judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is--
But now begins: for from this happy day
The old dragon, under ground
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway,
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
The oracles are dumb:
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving;
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring, and dale
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
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