III: On Hearing The Shouts Of The People

Hark! from the distant town the long acclaim
On the charm'd silence of the evening breaks
With startling interruption;--yet it wakes
Thought of that voice of never-dying fame
Which on my boyish meditation came
Here, at an hour like this;--my soul partakes
A moment's gloom, that yon fierce contest slakes
Its thirst of high emprise and glorious aim:
Yet wherefore? Feelings that from heaven are shed
Into our tenements of flesh, ally
Themselves to earthly passions, lest, unfed
By warmth of human sympathies, they die;
And shall--earth's fondest aspirations dead--
Fulfil their first and noblest prophecy.