MAZARIN.

Serene the Marble Images Gleam'd down, in lengthen'd rows; Their life, like the Uranides, A glory and repose.

Glow'd forth the costly canvas spoil From many a gorgeous frame; One race will starve the living toil, The next will gild the name.

That stately silence silvering through, The steadfast tapers shone Upon the Painter's pomp of hue, The Sculptor's solemn stone.

Saved from the deluge-storm of Time, Within that ark, survey Whate'er of elder Art sublime Survives a world's decay!

There creeps a foot, there sighs a breath, Along the quiet floor; An old man leaves his bed of death To count his treasures o'er.

Behold the dying mortal glide Amidst the eternal Art; It were a sight to stir with pride Some pining Painter's heart!

It were a sight that might beguile Sad Genius from the Hour, To see the life of Genius smile Upon the death of Power.

The ghost-like master of that hall Is king-like in the land; And France's proudest heads could fall Beneath that spectre hand.

Veil'd in the Roman purple, preys The canker-worm within; And more than Bourbon's sceptre sways The crook of Mazarin.

Italian, yet more dear to thee Than sceptre, or than crook, The Art in which thine Italy Still charm'd thy glazing look!

So feebly, and with wistful eyes, He crawls along the floor; A dying man, who, ere he dies, Would count his treasures o'er.

And, from the landscape's soft repose, Smiled thy calm soul, Lorraine; And, from the deeps of Raphael, rose Celestial Love again.

In pomp, which his own pomp recalls, The haggard owner sees Thy cloth of gold and banquet halls, Thou stately Veronese!

While, cold as if they scorn'd to hail Creations not their own, The Gods of Greece stand marble-pale Around the Thunderer's throne.

There, Hebe brims the urn of gold; There, Hermes treads the skies; There, ever in the Serpent's fold, Laocoon deathless dies.

There, startled from her mountain rest, Young Dian turns to draw The arrowy death that waits the breast Her slumber fail'd to awe.

There, earth subdued by dauntless deeds, And life's large labours done, Stands, sad as Worth with mortal meeds, Alcmena's mournful son.

They gaze upon the fading form With mute immortal eyes;— Here, clay that waits the hungry worm; There, children of the skies.

Then slowly as he totter'd by, The old Man, unresign'd, Sigh'd forth: “Alas! and must I die, And leave such life behind?

“The Beautiful, from which I part, Alone defies decay!” Still, while he sigh'd, the eternal Art Smiled down upon the clay.

And as he waved the feeble hand, And crawl'd unto the porch, He saw the Silent Genius stand With the extinguish'd torch!

The world without, for ever yours, Ye stern remorseless Three; What, from that changeful world, secures Calm Immortality?

Nay, soon or late decays, alas! Or canvass, stone, or scroll; From all material forms must pass To forms afresh, the soul.

‘ Tis but in that which doth create, Duration can be sought; A worm can waste the canvass;— Fate Ne'er swept from Time, a Thought.

Lives Phidias in his works alone?— His Jove returns to air: But wake one godlike shape from stone, And Phidian thought is there!

Blot out the Iliad from the earth, Still Homer's thought would fire Each deed that boasts sublimer worth, And each diviner lyre.

Like light, connecting star to star, Doth Thought transmitted run;— Rays that to earth the nearest are, Have longest left the sun.