But lo! on ocean's stormy breast I see majestic VENICE rest; While round her spires the billows rave, Inverted splendours gild the wave. Fair liberty has rear'd with toil, Her fabric on this marshy soil. She fled those banks with scornful pride, Where classic Po devolves her tide: Yet here her unrelenting laws Are deaf to nature's, freedom's cause. Unjust! they seal'd FOSCARI'S doom, An exile in his early bloom. And he, who bore the rack unmov'd, Divided far from those he lov'd, From all the social hour can give, From all that make it bliss to live, These worst of ills refus'd to bear, And died, the victim of despair. An eye of wonder let me raise, While on imperial ROME I gaze. But oh! no more in glory bright She fills with awe th' astonish'd sight: Her mould'ring fanes in ruin trac'd, Lie scatter'd on _Campania's_ waste. Nor only these--alas! we find The wreck involves the human mind: The lords of earth now drag a chain Beneath a pontiff's feeble reign; The soil that gave a _Cato_ birth No longer yields heroic worth, Whose image lives but on the bust, Or consecrates the medal's rust: Yet if no heart of modern frame Glows with the antient hero's flame, The dire _Arena's_ horrid stage Is banish'd from this milder age; Those savage virtues too are fled At which the human feelings bled. While now at _Virgil's_ tomb you bend, O let me on your steps attend! Kneel on the turf that blossoms round, And kiss, with lips devout, the ground. I feel how oft his magic powers Shed pleasure on my lonely hours. Tho' hid from me the classic tongue, In which his heav'nly strain was sung, In _Dryden's_ tuneful lines, I pierce The shaded beauties of his verse.