STATUE! whose giant limbs Old Buanorotti planned, And Genius carved with meditative hand, Thy dazzling radiance dims The best and brightest boast of sculpture's favorite 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 recognize The prophet fresh from converse with the skies; Nor is it hard to tell The liberator's name, the guide of Israel. 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! |