Lifts from the landscape, lost amidst the sky,
Has found the Ideal which the poet sings,
Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown,
And is himself a poet, though unknown.



IX.

APPLICATION OF THE POEM TO THE TALE TO WHICH IT IS PREFIXED.--THE
RHINE,--ITS IDEAL CHARACTER IN ITS HISTORICAL AND LEGENDARY ASSOCIATIONS.

Eno'!--my song is closing, and to thee,
Land of the North, I dedicate its lay;
As I have done the simple tale to be
The drama of this prelude!
Faraway
Rolls the swift Rhine beneath the starry ray;
But to my ear its haunted waters sigh;
Its moonlight mountains glimmer on my eye;
On wave, on marge, as on a wizard's glass,
Imperial ghosts in dim procession pass;
Lords of the wild, the first great Father-men,
Their fane the hill-top, and their home the glen;
Frowning they fade; a bridge of steel appears
With frank-eyed Caesar smiling through the spears;
The march moves onwards, and the mirror brings
The Gothic crowns of Carlovingian kings
Vanished alike! The Hermit rears his Cross,
And barbs neigh shrill, and plumes in tumult toss,