A man of rank and of capacious soul,
  Who riches had, and fame beyond desire,
  An heir to flattery, to titles born,
  And reputation and luxurious life;
  Yet not content with his ancestral name,
  Or to be known, because his fathers were,
  He, on this height hereditary, stood,
  And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart
  To take another step.  Above him, seemed
  Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
  Of canonized bards; and thitherward,
  By nature taught, and native melody,
  In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye. 
  No cost was spared—­what books he wished, he read;
  What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see
  He saw.  And first in rambling school-boy days
  Britannia’s mountain walks and heath girt lakes,
  And story telling glens, and founts, and brooks,
  And maids as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul,
  With grandeur filled, and melody, and love. 
  Then travel came and took him where he wished;
  He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp,
  And mused alone on ancient mountain brows,
  And mused on battle fields, where valor fought
  In other days:  and mused on men, grey
  With years:  and drank from old and fabulous wells,
  And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked;
  And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave
  Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste,
  The heavens and earth of every country; saw
  Where’er the old inspiring genii dwelt,
  Aught that could expand, refine the soul,
  Thither he went, and meditated there. 
  He touched his harp and nations heard, entranced,
  As some vast river of unfailing source. 
  Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed
  And ope’d new fountains in the human heart
  Where fancy halted, weary in her flight,
  In other men, his fresh as morning rose,
  And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home
  Where angels bashful looked.  Others, though great,
  Beneath their arguments seemed struggling, while
  He from above descending, stopped to touch
  The loftiest thought, and proudly stooped as though
  It scarce deserved his verse.  With nature’s self
  He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
  At will, with all her glorious Majesty;
  He laid his hand upon “the ocean’s wave,”
  And played familiar with his hoary locks;
  Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,
  And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend,
  And wove his garland of the light’ning’s wing,
  In sportive twist;—­the light’ning’s fiery wing,
  Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
  Marching up the storm in vengeance, seemed
  Then turned:  and with the grasshopper, who song
  His evening song beneath his feet, conversed,
  Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds, his sisters were,
  Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms,
  His brothers; younger brothers, whom he