Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/145

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133

O'er the wide champaign while they pass,
Their footsteps yield no sound,
Nor shake from the light trembling grass
A dew-drop to the ground.

Among the undistinguish'd hosts,
My wondering eyes explore
Awful, sublime, terrific ghosts,
Heroes and kings of yore:—

Tyrants, the comets of their kind,
Whose withering influence ran
Through all the promise of the mind,
And smote and mildew'd man:—

Sages, the pleiades of earth,
Whose genial aspects smiled,
And flowers and fruitage sprang to birth
O'er all the human wild.

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