By glistering star-light thro' the snow,
Breathes softly in her wondering ear
Each potent spell thou bad'st him know.
By thee inspir'd, on India's sands, [Footnote 5]
Full in the sun the Bramin stands;
And, while the panting tigress hies
To quench her fever in the stream,
His spirit laughs in agonies, [Footnote 6]
Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam.
Mark who mounts the sacred pyre,
Blooming in her bridal vest:
She hurls the torch! she fans the fire!
To die is to be blest: [Footnote 7]
She clasps her lord to part no more,
And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar.
O'ershadowing Scotia's desert coast,
The Sisters sail in dusky state, [Footnote 8]
And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost,
Weave the airy web of fate;
While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main, [Footnote 9]
Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train,

II. 1.

Thou spak'st, and lo! a new creation glow'd.
Each unhewn mass of living stone
Was clad in horrors not its own,
And at its base the trembling nations bow'd.
Giant Error, darkly grand,
Grasp'd the globe with iron hand.