What sons of clay Are these that stand among your shrines to-day, Gods of the ancient rivers! and who set The heavy impress of barbarian feet Upon your classic shores, and dare to love Your ruined homes in temple, rock, and grove! What new rude sons of Japhet! What mad crew, Whose only creed is what it dares to do Through lack of knowledge, whose undoubting heart, Here in the very temples of old art, Brings out its little tribute, builds its shrines, Wreathes its sad garlands of untutored lines, Writes, paints, professes, sculptures its new gods, And dares to have its home in your abodes! Oh, if I had a soul oppressed with song, A tongue on fire to prophesy among My brother prophets, if I had a hand Which needs must write its legend on life's sand With brush or chisel, I at least would choose Some soil less fair, less sacred to the Muse, Some younger, wilder land, where no sad voice Had ever stammered forth its tale of joys, And loves and sorrows, or in tones less rude Than the brute pulsing of its human blood; If I would build a temple, it should be At least not here, not here in Italy, Where all these temples stand. My thought should shape Its fancies in rough granite on some cape O'erlooking the Atlantic, from whose foam No goddess ever leaped, and not in Rome, Beneath the mockery of immortal eyes, Gazing in marble down, so coldly wise! Such was Griselda's thought, which, half aloud, She uttered one May morning 'mid a crowd Of pleasure-seekers, come from Rome to see The wonder of these falls of Tivoli, And Belgirate's villa, where the Prince Was offering entertainment (for his sins), And dancing to all such as called him friend That Spring in Rome, now nearly at an end;-- A thought suggested by the place and by A German painter, who undauntedly Was plying a huge canvas just begun, With brush and palette seated in the sun. She had hardly meant to speak, and when Lord L. Objected (for he knew his classics well) That landscape-painting was an unknown trade In the days of Horace, blushed for her tirade, And turned to Belgirate, who stood near, Playing the host to all the world and her.