Classic Poem

At the foot of the Mausoleum of Pope Julius II. in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Rome — the Masterpiece of Michael Angelo.

Statue! whose giant limbs
Old Buonarotti plann'd,
And Genius carved with meditative hand, —
Thy dazzling radiance dims
The best and brightest boasts of Sculpture's favourite land.

What dignity adorns
That beard's prodigious sweep!
That forehead, awful with mysterious horns
And cogitation deep,
Of some uncommon mind the rapt beholder warns.

In that proud semblance, well
My soul can recognise
The prophet fresh from converse with the skies;
Nor is it hard to tell
The liberator's name. — the Guide of Israil.

Well might the deep respond
Obedient to that voice,
When on the Red Sea shore he waved his wand,
And bade the tribes rejoice,
Saved from the yawning gulf and the Egyptian's bond!

Fools! in the wilderness
Ye raised a calf of gold!
Had ye then worshipped what I now behold,
Your crime had been far less —
For ye had bent the knee to one of godlike mould!