475 With choicest boons her human worshippers. How vigorous now the athletic form of age! How clear its open and unwrinkled brow! Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care, Had stamped the seal of grey deformity 480 On all the mingling lineaments of time. How lovely the intrepid front of youth! How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy. Within the massy prison's mouldering courts, Fearless and free the ruddy children play, 485 Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows With the green ivy and the red wall-flower, That mock the dungeon's unavailing gloom; The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron, There rust amid the accumulated ruins 490 Now mingling slowly with their native earth:      There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:                   495 No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds And merriment are resonant around. The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more 500 The voice that once waked multitudes to war      Thundering thro' all their aisles: but now respond To the 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 

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