V.

Time waned--and thoughts intense, and grave and high, With sterner truths foreshadow'd Minstrel dreams; Yet never vanish'd from the Minstrel's eye That meteor blended with the morning beams. Time waned, and ripe became the long desire, Which, nursed in youth, with restless manhood grew A passion--to behold that heart of Earth, Yet trembling with the silver Mantuan lyre, To knightly arms by Tasso tuned anew:-- So the fair Pilgrim left his father's hearth. Into his soul he drunk the lofty lore, Floating like air around the clime of song; Beheld the starry sage,[B] what time he bore For truth's dear glory the immortal wrong; Communed majestic with majestic minds; And all the glorious wanderer heard or saw Or felt or learn'd or dream'd, were as the winds That swell'd the sails of his triumphant soul; As then, ev'n then, with ardour yet in awe, It swept Time's ocean to its distant goal.