red most for gods and bulls! and bold

"Electric Pindar, quick as fear,
With race-dust on his checks, and clear,
Slant startled eyes that seem to hear

"The chariot rounding the last goal,
To hurtle past it in his soul!
And Sappho crown'd with aureole

"Of ebon curls on calmed brows--
O poet-woman! none forgoes
The leap, attaining the repose!

"Theocritus, with glittering locks,
Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks
He watch'd the visionary flocks!

"And Aristophanes! who took
The world with mirth, and laughter-struck
The hollow caves of Thought, and woke

"The infinite echoes hid in each.
And Virgil! shade of Mantuan beech
Did help the shade of bay to reach

"And knit around his forehead high!--
For his gods wore less majesty
Than his brown bees humm'd deathlessly.

"Lucretius--nobler than his mood!
Who dropp'd his plummet down the broad
Deep universe, and said 'No God,'

"Finding no bottom. He denied
Divinely the divine, and died
Chief poet on the Tiber-side,

"By grace of God. His face is stern,
As one compell'd, in spite of scorn,
To teach a truth he could not learn.

"And Ossian, dimly seen or guess'd!
Once counted greater than the rest,
When mountain-winds blew out his vest.

"And Spenser droop'd his dreaming head
(With languid sleep-smile you had said
From his own verse engendered)

"On Ariosto's, till they ran
Their locks in one!--The Italian
Shot nimbler heat of bolder man

"From his fine lids. And Dante stern
And sweet, whose spirit was an urn
For wine and milk pour'd out in turn.

"And Goethe--with that reaching eye
His soul reach'd out from far and high,
_And fell from inner entity_.

"And Schiller, with heroic front
Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon't--
Too large for wreath of modern wont.

"Here Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim!
The shapes of suns and stars did swim
Like clouds on them, and granted him

"God for sole vision! Cowley, there,
Whose active fancy debonaire
Drew straws like amber--foul to fair.

"And Burns, with pungent passionings
Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs
Are of the fire-mount's issuings.

"And poor, proud Byron--sad as grave
And salt as life! forlornly brave,
And quivering with the dart he drave.

"And