assisted by the providence of God) achieve a far more difficult conquest; and ultimately find some means of enabling the collective wisdom of mankind to bear down those obstacles which individual short-sightedness, selfishness, and passion, oppose to all improvements, and by which the highest hopes are continually blighted, and the fairest prospects marred.
Herschel's Study of Nat. Phil. 72.
The Protectors are conducted to their territory. Views on coming in sight of it. Its formation and chartered rights. The Protectors and Ambassadors enter by the Cedar Avenue: the vastness and grandeur of which is described. Cursory local descriptions of the grand international domains. Notices of the temple, council hall, and museum erected there. Works in sculpture. A simile derived from Horticulture concludes the allegory.
LEAVING that city the high brotherhood, By the ambassadors attended, moved Toward their abiding-place; and while they sought
That quiet sanctuary, as one man came The people forth, and a firm escort formed, Kind and congratulatory. Till from sight The last of the procession passed, there gazed Vast numbers; and these musing deemed its track
Bright realms, where the enchanter Sleep had
The scene of a grand fable, and produced His people; on the morrow to dissolve!
At last there spread below us the domains Of earth's Protectorate-such wide expanse He sees around him who o'erlooks the sea From a steep promontory-rich champaign. Glens, airy commons, forests of old oaks, All centered in one valley. Seventy gates, Wrought bronze, and gorgeously o'ergilded, hang Under their lofty portals; which stand in The circumjacent boundary; into hills And eminences broken. Here was signed The charter which this territory (formed Of divers independent manors,) grants A royal Honour's privileges and rights; And frees these international domains From foreign empire. At the middle gate On entering, sudden burst upon our view The fields of cedar. Far up rising ground To a hill's summit broadest avenue Ascending gradually, on either side Broad Lebanonian cedars equal stand, Throughout the lengthening vista, and impress Exactest symmetry and unison !
The hugh boughs' inclination, (the whole length O'erarching promenades,) a sylvan roof,
In smoothest continuity extends,
From end to end. Up all this sloping way,
Viewed from the gates, the cedars' lofty heads
Seem looped in the blue heavens, and lost on
The grand procession leisurely advanced, And on the hill-top saw this avenue Sweep downward, and with gentle curvature Into a forest turning, there define,
In sombre foliage, its long sinuous course. Upon a cross road coming, they proceed Along it through a region wild and high, (There many a covey springing, in the air Spoke hoarse and shrill, or ran upon the heath,) And traversing the honour's outward parts, By deer o'erbrowsed, through a farm's cheerful lands,
And village, opening on a vineyard, draw To the conservatory and the walks
Of the cool garden. Winding rivers gleam. Through this domain meandering. Here their
Are subterranean; there they re-appear And, gushingly aloft forth welling, play Their liquid columns full against the beams Of the sun's disk; thence trickle o'er low rocks Through moss and water-flowers; and course down hills,
And, softly murmuring in a shallower brook, Into an oval lake pellucid flow;
And now all turbulent in clouds of foam
Come headlong, showering with their spray the
Here, by commandment of the nations built, (23) Are seventy mansions. And a stately pile Reared in the valley's centre, proudly stands Leaning on marbles of enormous girth, Its front's sublimity; and, triune, is
For God, and Man, and Nature's service built. (24) Viewed altogether, as it dazzling stands,- A temple with its cupola and towers; And a museum; and a council hall,- The fine colossal fabric, these three ends By its exterior eloquently shows,
Upon the model of its purpose shaped. Here Hulel said "These stones know to impress On us their dedication: none has need
To be on them inscribed. Had they a tongue, More loud than thunders burst forth, would resound
This Proclamation: "Only those are kings Who heed these counsellors: the rest incur Irrevocable interdict, and mourn,
In exile, lost dominions, friends estranged, And empire." Here a multitude immense Gazed, all admiring, at the hanging site Of the flower-gardens; there with nicer eye
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