| |
| METHOUGHT I stood | |
| Upon a field where slaughter once had rode | |
| With reeking scimitar, and plumes that hung | |
| Flapping upon his helmet, drench’d with blood;— | |
| And there were graves, that had been digg’d | 5 |
| By soldiers’ hands—the turf turn’d up in haste, | |
| With blades still hot from battle—and the grass | |
| Was thick—a heart had gush’d on every root, | |
| And it was fed with clotted gore, until | |
| It lifted up its tall, rank spires of green, | 10 |
| Around that place of carnage, marking out | |
| The spot where desolation’s hand had fall’n. | |
| So where the ruins of some city lie,— | |
| Destruction’s monuments—luxuriantly | |
| The mantling ivy spreads its leafy arms | 15 |
| O’er every mouldering shaft—embracing close | |
| Each fluted column, as it were to hide | |
| The lone prostration of the beautiful. | |
| In that unholy place, methought I stood | |
| In midnight solitude—and one approach’d, | 20 |
| Whose step resounded ’mid the tombs, as if | |
| The sheeted dead were troubled—and their sleep | |
| Disturb’d and broken by the stranger’s walk. | |
| He had a princely presence, and his glance | |
| Might make the boldest cheek grow pale with awe; | 25 |
| His brow was that of majesty—and yet | |
| An unquell’d spirit seem’d at work within— | |
| A mighty spirit for that bosom heaved, | |
| And there were flashes passing o’er that brow | |
| Like lightning o’er a marble firmament. | 30 |
| He trod upon a grave—there was a sound— | |
| A bursting sound beneath the hollow earth, | |
| And he who lay there, woke—and rose;—and yet | |
| No terror smote that proud one’s heart—nor stay’d | |
| The beating of his pulses, but he gazed | 35 |
| In calmness at the form, who beckon’d him | |
| Forth from that Golgotha. The spectre led, | |
| And they toil’d on, in paths that mortal foot | |
| Till then had never press’d. The cataract, | |
| That like the wrath of God bore down—was cross’d; | 40 |
| And when the tempest in its fury came, | |
| They battled onward—and the strife was like | |
| The combat of a band of giants, when | |
| They fight for domination, and put forth, | |
| Their utmost strength, until their sinews snap, | 45 |
| And the blood rushes like a lava stream. | |
| That youthful warrior follow’d still the track | |
| Of him clothed in unearthly robes, until | |
| They reach’d a mountain’s base; then in a voice | |
| That caused my flesh to quake, and the cold sweat | 50 |
| To stand upon my brow, he bade him mount | |
| The precipice, and scale the jutting cliff. | |
| There was a rustling of the panoply | |
| Which he had on—an outstretch’d arm—and then | |
| Blue lightning shot across a dome that stood | 55 |
| Upon that rocky parapet—I saw | |
| A fiery inscription on the base | |
| Of that aspiring temple——— | |
| AMBITION————— | |
| |
