| Pours his incessant stream along, |
| While craggy ridge and mountain bare |
| Cut keenly through the liquid air, |
| And in their own pure tints array'd, |
| Scorn earth's green robes which change and
fade, |
| And stand in beauty undecay'd, |
| Guards of the bold
and free. |
For what is Afric, but the home |
| Of burning
Phlegethon? |
| What the low beach and silent gloom, {306} |
| And chilling mists of that dull river, |
| Along whose bank the thin ghosts shiver,— |
| The thin wan ghosts that once were men,— |
| But Tauris, isle of moor and fen, |
| Or, dimly traced by seamen's ken, |
| The pale-cliff'd
Albion. |
The Oratory.
1856. |