That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought,
If free to choose, I cannot now restore
Its health--but what it then detested, still abhor.[nl]

LXXVII.

Then farewell, Horace--whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine: it is a curse
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
To comprehend, but never love thy verse;
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art,
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce,
Awakening without wounding the touched heart,
Yet fare thee well--upon Soracte's ridge we part.

LXXVIII.

Oh, Rome! my Country! City of the Soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone Mother of dead Empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress--hear the owl--and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples--Ye!
Whose agonies are evils of a day--
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

LXXIX.

The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;[nm]
empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;[457]
The very sepulchres lie tenantless[458]
Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.[459]

LXXX.

The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and Fire,[460]
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride;
She saw her glories star by star expire,[nn]
And up the steep barbarian Monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol;[461] far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night?

LXXXI.

The double night of ages, and of her,[no]
Night's daughter, Ignorance,[462] hath wrapt and wrap
All round us; we but feel our way to err:
The Ocean hath his chart, the Stars their map,
And Knowledge spreads them o