Note 24 — EXCURSION I.

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Majestic Michael rises, he whose brow

Is crown’d with Castles, and whose rocky sides

Are clad with dusky ivy; he whose base,

Bent by the storms of ages, stands unmov’d

Amidst the wreck of things—the change of time.

That base, encircl’d by the azure waves,

Was once with verdure clad; the towering oaks

Here waved their branches green; the sacred oaks,

Whose awful shades among the Druids stray’d,

To cut the hallow’d Mistletoe, and hold

High converse with their Gods.