IV.

O piteous mockery of all pomp thou art, Poor Child of Clay, worn out with toil and years! As, layer by layer, the granite of the heart Dissolving, melteth to the weakest tears That ever Village Maiden shed above The grave that robb'd her quiet world of love.

Ten days and nights upon that floor Those weary limbs have lain; And every hour has added more Of heaviness to pain. As gazing into dismal air She sees the headless phantom there, The victim round whose image twined The last wild love of womankind; That lightning flash'd from stormy hearts, Which now reveals the deeps of Heaven, And now remorseless, earthward darts, Rives, and expires on what its stroke hath riven!

'Twere sad to see from those stern eyes Th' unheeded anguish feebly flow; And hear the broken word that dies In moanings faint and low;-- But sadder still to mark the while, The vacant stare--the marble smile, And think, that goal of glory won. How slight a shade between The idiot moping in the sun And England's giant Queen![G]