statues barred his tread. 
     On high in amphitheatre field on field,
     Italian, Egyptian, Austrian,
     Far heard and of the carnage discord clear,
     Bells of his escalading triumphs pealed
     In crashes on a choral chant severe,
     Heraldic of the authentic Charlemagne,
     Globe, sceptre, sword, to enfold, to rule, to smite,
     Make unity of the mass,
     Coherent or refractory, by his might.

     Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass,
     Fame blew, and tuned the jangles, bent the knees
     Rebellious or submissive; his decrees
     Were thunder in those heavens and compelled: 
     Such as disordered earth, eclipsed of stars,
     Endures for sign of Order’s calm return,
     Whereunto she is vowed; and his wreckage-spars,
     His harried ships, old riotous Ocean lifts alight,
     Subdued to splendour in his delirant churn. 
     Glory suffused the accordant, quelled,
     By magic of high sovereignty, revolt: 
     And he, the reader of men, himself unread;
     The name of hope, the name of dread;
     Bloom of the coming years or blight;
     An arm to hurl the bolt
     With aim Olympian; bore
     Likeness to Godhead.  Whither his flashes hied
     Hosts fell; what he constructed held rock-fast. 
     So did earth’s abjects deem of him that built and clove. 
     Torch on imagination, beams he cast,
     Whereat they hailed him deified: 
     If less than an eagle-speeding Jove, than Vulcan more. 
     Or it might be a Vulcan-Jove,
     Europe for smithy, Europe’s floor
     Lurid with sparks in evanescent showers,
     Loud echo-clap of hammers at all hours,
     Our skies the reflex of its furnace blast.

     III

     On him the long enchained, released
     For bride of the miracle day up the midway blue;
     She from her heavenly lover fallen to serve for feast
     Of rancours and raw hungers; she, the untrue,
     Yet pitiable, not despicable, gazed. 
     Fawning, her body bent, she gazed
     With eyes the moonstone portals to her heart: 
     Eyes magnifying through hysteric tears
     This apparition, ghostly for belief;
     Demoniac or divine, but sole
     Over earth’s mightiest written Chief;
     Earth’s chosen, crowned, unchallengeable upstart: 
     The trumpet word to awake, transform, renew;
     The arbiter of circumstance;
     High above limitations, as the spheres. 
     Nor ever had heroical Romance,
     Never ensanguined History’s lengthened scroll,
     Shown fulminant to shoot the levin dart
     Terrific as this man, by whom upraised,
     Aggrandized and begemmed, she outstripped her peers;
     Like midnight’s levying brazier-beacon blazed
     Defiant to the world, a rally for her sons,
     Day of the darkness; this man’s mate; by him,