For here, not one, but many, make their play,

And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand,

Flashing and cast around; of all the band,

The brightest through these parted hills 99 hath fork'd

His lightnings, -as if he did understand

That in such gaps as desolation work'd, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd.

Sky, mountains, rivers, winds, lake, lightning! ye!

With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul

To make these felt and feeling, well may be

Things that have made me watchful;
the far roll

Of your departing voices, is the knoll1
Of what in me is sleepless,-if I rest.
But where of ye, O tempests! is the 100
goal?

Are ye like those within the human
breast?

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

Could I embody and unbosom now
That which is most within me,-could
I wreak

My thoughts upon expression, and thus
throw

Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings,
strong or weak,

All that I would have sought, and all
I seek,

Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe-into101 one word,

And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;

But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,

Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,

And living as if earth contain'd no

tomb,

And glowing into day: we may resume The march of our existence: and thus I, 1 knell

Mortals, who sought and found, by

dangerous roads,

A path to perpetuity of fame:

They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim

Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile

Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame

Of Heaven again assail'd, if Heaven the while

On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

The one was fire and fickleness,1 a child,
Most mutable in wishes, but in mind
A wit as various,-gay, grave, sage, or
wild,-

Historian, bard, philosopher, combined:
He multiplied himself among mankind,
The Proteus of their talents; but his own
Breathed most in ridicule,-which, as