When
they had mounted the steps, the Queen and her companions lifted their
garlands to the skies, and joined in a chorus, solemn and melodious,
but which did not sound as the language of Syria. Passing through the
portico, Tancred found himself apparently in a vast apartment, where he
beheld a strange spectacle.
At the first glance it seemed that, ranged on blocks of the surrounding
mountains, were a variety of sculptured figures of costly materials
and exquisite beauty; forms of heroic majesty and ideal grace; and,
themselves serene and unimpassioned, filling the minds of the beholders
with awe and veneration. It was not until his eye was accustomed to the
atmosphere, and his mind had in some degree recovered from the first
strange surprise, that Tancred gradually recognised the fair and famous
images over which his youth had so long and so early pondered. Stole
over his spirit the countenance august, with the flowing beard and
the lordly locks, sublime on his ivory throne, in one hand the ready
thunderbolt, in the other the cypress sceptre; at his feet the watchful
eagle with expanded wings: stole over the spirit of the gazing pilgrim,
each shape of that refined and elegant hierarchy made for the worship
of clear skies and sunny lands; goddess and god, genius and nymph,
and faun, all that the wit and heart of man can devise and create, to
represent his genius and his passion, all that the myriad developments
of a beautiful nature can require for their personification.
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