Canto III: An Assembly of Evil Spirits

Tho’ chang’d my cloth of gold for amice grey—mIn my spring-time, when every month was May,With hawk and hound I cours’d away the hour,Or sung my roundelay in lady’s bower.And tho’ my world be now a narrow cell,(Renounc’d for ever all I lov’d so well)Tho’ now my head be bald, my feet be bare,And scarce my knees sustain my book of prayer,Oh I was there, one of that gallant crew,And saw—and wonder’d whence his Power He drew,Yet little thought, tho’ by his side I stood,Of his great Foes in earth and air and flood,Then uninstructed.—But my sand is run,And the Night coming—-and my Task not done!—’Twas in the deep, immeasurable caveOf ANDES, echoing to the Southern wave,nMid pillars of Basalt, the work of fire,That, giant-like, to upper day aspire,’Twas there that now, as wont in heav’n to shine,Forms of angelic mould, and grace divine,Assembled. All, exil’d the realms of rest,In vain the sadness of their souls suppress’d;Yet of their glory many a scatter’d rayShot thro’ the gathering shadows of decay.Each mov’d a God; and all, as Gods, possess’dOne half the globe; from pole to pole confess’d!These in dim shrines and barbarous symbols reign,Where PLATA and MARAGNON meet the Main.oThose the wild hunter worships as he roves,In the green shade of CHILI’S fragrant groves;Or warrior-tribes with rites of blood implore,Whose night-fires gleam along the sullen shoreOf HURON or ONTARIO, inland seas,pWhat time the song of death is in the breeze!’Twas now in dismal pomp and order due,While the vast concave flash’d with lightnings blue,On shining pavements of metallic ore,That many an age the fusing sulphur bore,They held high council. All was silence round,When, with a voice most sweet yet most profound,A sovereign Spirit burst the gates of night,And from his wings of gold shook drops of liquid light!MERION, commission’d with his host to sweepFrom age to age the melancholy deep!Chief of the ZEMI, whom the Isles obey’d,By Ocean sever’d from a world of shade.