What power against such rivalry could stand? Farewell, poor DRAMA! seek another land. Fancy ev'n now anticipates the day When your last pageant shall have passed away: I see, I see the auctioneer profane Each inmost recess of your hallowed reign; While crowds of clergymen and deacons pour Your violated horrors to explore. Nightly no more the magic foot-lights rise, Nor oil-cloth moons ascend the canvass skies. BRAGALDIS'S brush, poor Queen! is dry for you, Doomed now to deck the pulpit and the pew. Yes; the same art which whilom could transport The lost beholder to king DUNCAN'S court, Or bid him stand upon the 'blasted heath,' Where the weird women, low'ring, hailed MACBETH, Is now your only cheap cathedral-builder, With some small aid from carver and from gilder: What masons cannot build, the painter paints In water-colors, to delight the saints.
'Tis true: I've witnessed in the house of prayer Shows that had made a pious Pagan stare; A lie bedaubed upon the walls, forsooth, Where true believers come to worship Truth! Lo! Gothic shafts their taper heads exalt Arch above arch, and vault supporting vault; Around the chancel, marble to the eye, Seraphs and cherubs in distemper fly, While far beyond a seeming choir extends Whose awful depth a mimic window ends. Through the dim panes (so well the scenes are done) For ever streams a never-setting sun, And all appears the work of hands divine, Another Westminster--of varnished pine! Nor only so; the very violins Are now atoning for their ancient sins, By sweetly blending with the organ's roar, And winning souls as ORPHEUS did of yore. Sure, flutes and hautboys and Italian skill May with fresh crowds the 'anxious-benches' fill, And many a heart an orchestra may move, Past all the power of preaching to improve.
Herein observe how modes and tastes recur, And all things _are_ precisely what they were; For all the changes of our history seem Infinite eddies in the sweeping stream, Down which, while gliding whither we are bound, Our course eternally is round and round; Or why life's progress may I not compare To a long passage up a winding stair; We turn and turn again, as we ascend, For ever climbing toward the unknown end, Where one impenetrable veil of clouds The aim and summit of our being shrouds; And on our state bestowing but a glance, We seem to move, but never to advance; Ev'n as old Earth, obedient planet! rolls Poised on the balanced spindle of her poles, Yet duly fills her more extended sphere, Circling the central orb with every year, Thus we our double journey still pursue, Revolving still, yet ever onward too.