All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe into one word, 870 And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. CANTO IV. LXXVIII. Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! 695 O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye! 700 A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. LXXIX. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, 705 710 Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. LXXX. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; 715 Where the car climb'd the Capitol; far and wide And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night? LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her. 721 Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; 725 LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas! The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day 730 And Livy's pictured page!—but these shall be 735 Alas for earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! CLXXV. But I forget.-My Pilgrim's shrine is won, 1570 All that I would have sought, and all I see CANTO IV. (1818) LXXVIII. Oh Rome! my country! city of The Niobe of natio The Goth, Find Have deal She saw And up niverse, and feel yet cannot all conceal. XXIX. d dark blue Ocean-roll! sweep over thee in vain; wth with ruin-his control hore;-upon the watery plain are all thy deed, nor doth remain of man's ravage, save his own, r a moment, like a drop of rain, 1605 As into thy depths with bubbling groan, 1610 it a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. CLXXX. His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise 1615 And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth:-there let him lay. CLXXXI. 1625 The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 1621 Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafa The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd CLXXVI. Upon the blue Symplegades: long years 1576 1580 Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun : Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run, We have had our reward-and it is here; That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. CLXXVII. Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 1585 1590 I feel myself exalted-Can ye not Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 1595 By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal 1600 |