ON the dark heights that overlook the Rhine, Flinging long shadows on the watery plains, Crowned with grey towers, and girdled by the vine, How little of the warlike past remains! The castle-walls are shattered, and wild flowers Usurp the crimson banner's former sign. Where are the haughty Templars and their powers? Their forts are perished -- but not so their shrine. Like Memory veiled, Tradition sits and tells Her twilight histories of the olden time. How few the records of those craggy dells But what recall some sorrow or some crime. Of Europe's childhood was the feudal age, When the world's sceptre was the sword; and power, Unfit for human weakness, wrong, and rage, Knew not that curb which waits a wiser hour. Ill suited empire with a human hand, Authority needs rule, restraint, and awe; Order and peace spread gradual through the land, And force submits to a diviner law. A few great minds appear, and by their light The many find their way; truth after truth Rise starlike on the depths of moral night, Though even now is knowledge in its youth. Still as those ancient heights, which only bore The iron harvest of the sword and spear, Are now with purple vineyards covered o'er, While corn-fields fill the fertile valleys near. Our moral progress has a glorious scope, Much has the past by thought and labour done; Knowledge and Peace pursue the steps of Hope, Whose noblest victories are yet unwon. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FLUTE-PRIEST SONG FOR RAIN; CEREMONIAL AT THE SUN SPRING by AMY LOWELL I AM BORNE ONWARD by SARA TEASDALE THE BLOOD HORSE by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER A SONG OF PANAMA by ALFRED DAMON RUNYON THE CENTAURS by JAMES STEPHENS THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION; A POEM. ENLARGED VERSION: BOOK 1 by MARK AKENSIDE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 31. AL-LATIF by EDWIN ARNOLD |