Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1818-07-30

THURSDAY, JULY 80, 1878.
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Nv. cASro OF cHILDE HAROLD.
LCortiRaed.l
OF 81. Peters cathedral at Rome, lord
Byron speaks thus:
q But 10! the dome--the vast and won
d'rous dome,
20 which Diana's marvel was cell
Christ's mighty shrine above lhs martyrs
tomb!
have beheld the Ephesian's miracle -,
Its columns slrew the wilderness, and dweu.
The hyena AM the .jackail in their shade;
have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell
Their glittering mass 1.-THE sun, and have
surveyed
Its sanctuary, the while the usurping mos
lem pray'd.
"But thou, of temples old, or affairs new,
Stantest alone-with nothing like to thee
Worthiest OF God, the holy and the true.
Since Zions desolation, when that he
,Porsook his former city, what could be,
OF earthly structures, in his honor piled
Ola sublimer aspect? Majesty,
Power, glory, strength and beauty, all are
aisled,
In this eternsl mk Of worship undehled.
"Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why I? 1t is not lessened but the
mind,
Expanded by the genius OF the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only ind
4 fit abode, wherein appear ensirincd
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, il found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou Gost now
His holy of holes, nor be blasted by his
brow.
Thou movest, but increasing with the
advance,
Like climbing some great Alp, which still
doth rise,
Deceive by its gigantic elegance
Yas,ness which grows, but grows TO har-
moEiZe,
all musical in its immensi,ies;
Rich rnarbles---richer paintlng---shrlnes
where fame
The lamps of gold-and naughty dome,
which vies
In air with earth's chief structures, though
their frame
Sits on the irm-set groHnd-and this the
clouds must claim.
Thou seest not all: but piecemeal thou
must break,
Toseparate contemplation, the great whole;
And as the ocean many bays will make,
That ask the eye--so here condense thy soul
To more immediate objects, and control
Thy thoughts, until thy mind hath got by
heart,
Its eloquent proportions, and lnroll
In mighty graduations, part by part,
The glory which at once upon thee did not
dart.
Not By its fault-but thine: our outward
sense
Is but OF gradual grasp-and as il is,
That what we have Of feeling most intense,
Ou,strips our faint expression even SO this
Outshining and overwhelming edifice,
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest Of the
great,
Defes at first our natures littleness,
Till growing with IFS growth, we thus di-
late,
Our spirits to the size Of that they contem-
plate.
"Then pause, and be enlightened; there
is more
: In such survey, than the sating gaze
OF wonder pleased, or awe which would
adore
The worship OF the place, or the mere praise
Ofart aud its great masters, who could raise
What former time, nor skill, nor thought
could plan;
The foundation OF simplicity displays
It's depth, and thence may draw the mind
Of man,
It's golden sands, and learn what great con-
ception can.
"Or turning TO the vatican, go see
I.acoon's torture Identifying pain
A fathers love and mortal's agony,
With an immortal's patience blending -
vain
The struggle; vain agains, the coiling strain
And gripe, and, deepening OF the dragons
grasp,
The old mans clench the long envenomed
chain
Riyets the living links-the enormous asp
Entorces pang On pang, and stiles gasp on
gasp.
"Or view the lord Of the unerring bowl
The God of lite and poesy and Light
The sun in human limbs aTayed, and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the tight;
The shaft hath just been sbot-the arrow
bright
With an immortal vengeance in his eye
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might .
And majesty, fash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.