That page is now before me, and on mine HIS country's ruin added to the mass Of perished states he mourned in their decline, And I in desolation: all that WAS Of then destruction IS; and now, alas! Rome--Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, In the same dust and blackness, and we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form, Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. XLVII. Yet, Italy! through every other land Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; Mother of Arts! as once of Arms; thy hand Was then our Guardian, and is still our guide; Parent of our religion! whom the wide Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven! Europe, repentant of her parricide, Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. XLVIII. But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps To laughing life, with her redundant horn. Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps, Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. XLIX. There, too, the goddess loves in stone, and fills The air around with beauty; we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality; the veil Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail; And to the fond idolaters of old Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould: L. We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart Reels with its fulness; there--for ever there-- Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, We stand as captives, and would not depart. Away!--there need no words, nor terms precise, The paltry jargon of the marble mart, Where Pedantry gulls Folly--we have eyes: Blood, pulse, and breast, confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize. LI. Appearedst thou not to Paris in this guise? Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or, In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War? And gazing in thy face as toward a star, Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are With lava kisses melting while they burn, Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn! LII. Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, Their full divinity inadequate That feeling to express, or to improve, The gods become as mortals, and man's fate Has moments like their brightest! but the weight Of earth recoils upon us;--let it go! We can recall such visions, and create From what has been, or might be, things which grow, Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. LIII.