e with ships; but have sailed off on
a longer voyage. The hair of Towhead (Tete d'etoupes) now needs no
combing; Iron-cutter (Taillefer) cannot cut a cobweb; shrill Fredegonda,
shrill Brunhilda have had out their hot life-scold, and lie silent,
their hot life-frenzy cooled. Neither from that black Tower de Nesle
descends now darkling the doomed gallant, in his sack, to the Seine
waters; plunging into Night: for Dame de Nesle how cares not for this
world's gallantry, heeds not this world's scandal; Dame de Nesle is
herself gone into Night. They are all gone; sunk,--down, down, with
the tumult they made; and the rolling and the trampling of ever new
generations passes over them, and they hear it not any more forever.

And yet withal has there not been realised somewhat? Consider (to go no
further) these strong Stone-edifices, and what they hold! Mud-Town of
the Borderers (Lutetia Parisiorum or Barisiorum) has paved itself, has
spread over all the Seine Islands, and far and wide on each bank, and
become City of Paris, sometimes boasting to be 'Athens of Europe,' and
even 'Capital of the Universe.' Stone towers frown aloft; long-lasting,
grim with a thousand years. Cathedrals are there, and a Creed (or
memory of a Creed) in them; Palaces, and a State and Law. Thou seest
the Smoke-vapour; unextinguished Breath as of a thing living. Labour's
thousand hammers ring on her anvils: also a more miraculous Labour works
noiselessly, not with the Hand but with the Thought. How have cunning
workmen in all crafts, with their cunning head and right-hand, tamed
the Four Elements to be their ministers; yoking the winds to their
Sea-chariot, making the very Stars their Nautical Timepiece;--and
written and collected a Bibliotheque du Roi; among whose Books is the
Hebrew Book! A wondrous race of creatures: these have been realised, and
what of Skill is in these: call not the Past Time, with all its confused
wretchednesses, a lost one.

Observe, however, that of man's whole terrestrial possessions and
attainments, unspeakably the noblest are his Symbols, divine or
divine-seeming; under which he marches and fights, with victorious
assurance, in this life-battle: what we can call his Realised Ideals. Of
which realised ideals, omitting the rest, consider only these two:
his Church, or spiritual Guidance; his Kingship, or temporal one. The
Church: what a word was there; richer than Golconda and the treasures of
the world! In the heart of the rem