Grim sentinels, against the upper wall,

          Of molten bronze, two Statues held their place;

        Massive their naked limbs, their stature tall,

          Their frowning foreheads golden circles grace.

        Moulded they seemed for kings of giant race,

          That lived and sinned before the avenging flood;

        This grasped a scythe, that rested on a mace;

          This spread his wings for flight, that pondering stood,

      Each stubborn seemed and stern, immutable of mood.

        Fixed was the right-hand Giant’s brazen look

          Upon his brother’s glass of shifting sand,

        As if its ebb he measured by a book,

          Whose iron volume loaded his huge hand;

        In which was wrote of many a fallen land

          Of empires lost, and kings to exile driven:

        And o’er that pair their names in scroll expand -

          “Lo, DESTINY and TIME! to whom by Heaven

      The guidance of the earth is for a season given.” -

        Even while they read, the sand-glass wastes away;

          And, as the last and lagging grains did creep,

        That right-hand Giant ’gan his club upsway,

          As one that startles from a heavy sleep.

        Full on the upper wall the mace’s sweep

          At once descended with the force of thunder,

        And hurtling down at once, in crumbled heap,

          The marble boundary was rent asunder,

      And gave to Roderick’s view new sights of fear and wonder.

        For they might spy, beyond that mighty breach,

          Realms as of Spain in visioned prospect laid,

        Castles and towers, in due proportion each,

          As by some skilful artist’s hand portrayed:

        Here, crossed by many a wild Sierra’s shade,