7. 
Out of that Ocean’s wrecks had Guilt and Woe
Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought,
And, starting at the ghosts which to and fro
Glide o’er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought
The worship thence which they each other taught. 725
Well might men loathe their life, well might they turn
Even to the ills again from which they sought
Such refuge after death!—­well might they learn
To gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern!

8. 
For they all pined in bondage; body and soul, 730
Tyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent
Before one Power, to which supreme control
Over their will by their own weakness lent,
Made all its many names omnipotent;
All symbols of things evil, all divine; 735
And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent
The air from all its fanes, did intertwine
Imposture’s impious toils round each discordant shrine.

9. 
I heard, as all have heard, life’s various story,
And in no careless heart transcribed the tale; 740
But, from the sneers of men who had grown hoary
In shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale
By famine, from a mother’s desolate wail
O’er her polluted child, from innocent blood
Poured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale 745
With the heart’s warfare, did I gather food
To feed my many thoughts—­a tameless multitude!

10. 
I wandered through the wrecks of days departed
Far by the desolated shore, when even
O’er the still sea and jagged islets darted 750
The light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven,
Among the clouds near the horizon driven,
The mountains lay beneath one planet pale;
Around me, broken tombs and columns riven
Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale 755
Waked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!

11. 
I knew not who had framed these wonders then,
Nor had I heard the story of their deeds;
But dwellings of a race of mightier men,
And monuments of less ungentle creeds 760
Tell their own tale to him who wisely heeds
The language which they speak; and now, to me
The moonlight making pale the blooming weeds,
The bright stars shining in the breathless sea,
Interpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery. 765

12. 
Such man has been, and such may yet become! 
Ay, wiser, greater, gentler even than they
Who on the fragments of yon shattered dome
Have stamped the sign of power—­I felt the sway
Of the vast stream of ages bear away 770
My floating thoughts—­my heart beat loud and fast—­
Even as a storm let loose beneath the ray
Of the still moon, my spirit onward passed
Beneath truth’s steady beams upon its tumult cast.