n, such as I suppose belong at all times to the true
poetical temperament. It must be so, I thought to myself; no new city
will rise again out of the double ruins of this; no new empire will be
founded upon these colossal remains of that of the old Romans. The
world, like the individual, flourishes in youth, rises to strength in
manhood, falls into decay in age; and the ruins of an empire are like the
decrepit frame of an individual, except that they have some tints of
beauty which nature bestows upon them. The sun of civilisation arose in
the East, advanced towards the West, and is now at its meridian; in a few
centuries more it will probably be seen sinking below the horizon even in
the new world, and there will be left darkness only where there is a
bright light, deserts of sand where there were populous cities, and
stagnant morasses where the green meadow or the bright cornfield once
appeared. I called up images of this kind in my imagination. "Time," I
said, "which purifies, and as it were sanctifies the mind, destroys and
brings into utter decay the body; and, even in nature, its influence
seems always degrading. She is represented by the poets as eternal in
her youth, but amongst these ruins she appears to me eternal in her age,
and here no traces of renovation appear in the ancient of days." I had
scarcely concluded this ideal sentence when my reverie became deeper, the
ruins surrounding me appeared to vanish from my sight, the light of the
moon became more intense, and the orb itself seemed to expand in a flood
of splendour. At the same time that my visual organs appeared so
singularly affected, the most melodious sounds filled my ear, softer yet
at the same time deeper and fuller than I had ever heard in the most
harmonious and perfect concert. It appeared to me that I had entered a
new state of existence, and I was so perfectly lost in the new kind of
sensation which I experienced that I had no recollections and no
perceptions of identity. On a sudden the music ceased, but the brilliant
light still continued to surround me, and I heard a low but extremely
distinct and sweet voice, which appeared to issue from the centre of it.
The sounds were at first musical like those of a harp, but they soon
became articulate, as if a prelude to some piece of sublime poetical
composition. "You, like all your brethren," said the voice, "are
entirely ignorant of every thing belonging to yourselves, the world you
inh