Before the world of spirit drawn) remove
The dim material hindrance, and illume;
That human thought again may dare behold
The shape and port of spirits, and once more
Hear voices in that distant, shadowy world,
To which ourselves, and this, are shadows, they
The substance, immaterial essence pure--

Souls that have freed their slave, and given back
Its force unto the elements, the dread

Manes, or the more dread Archetypes of men :
Like whom in featured reason's shape-like whom
Created in the mould of God-they fell,
And, mixed with them in common ruin, made
One vast and many-realmèd world, and shared
Their deep abodes-their endless exile, some,-
Some to return to the ethereous light
When one of human form, a Saviour-Man
Almighty, not in deity alone,

But mightier than all angels in the might
And guard of human innocence preserved,
Should freely enter their dark empire-these
To loose, o'er those to triumph; this the theme,
The adventure, and the triumph of my song.

L.

BOOK I.

BOOK I.

CAME on the starless age of the uncheered

Dark night, that in the shadow of the earth
Hid the dead Saviour of the world, and gleamed
Upon the warrior-watched and virgin tomb

Which held the mortal of that man foredoomed

To visit the deep region of the dead,

And thence to reascend both earth and heaven,
The first pale day; and more mean-time the gloom
Deepened in hell-where, motionless, reclined
The sad immortals, chief among the powers
Of earth and air, giants and fallen gods,

And looked upon each other without word.
Nor might the grief that bowed supremest shapes,
Nor the dumb trouble in their eyes, find voice