I’ll go along, no such sight to he shown, 
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. 
Shakspeare. 
But lo! the dome—the vast and wondrous dome. 
To which Diana’s marvel was a cell— 
Christ’s mighty shrine above his martyr’s tomb 1 
I have beheld the Ephesian’s miracle— 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade, 
I have beheld Sophia’s bright roofs swell 
Their glittering mass i’ the sun, and have surveyed 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed; 
But thou, of temples old, or altars new, 
Standest alone—with nothing like to thee— 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 
Since Zion’s desolation, when that He 
Forsook his former city, what could be, 
Of earthly structures in his honour piled, 
Of-a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, 
Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 
Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not; 
And why ? it is not lessened; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, 
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. 
Byron. 
