* * * * * _Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,_ _Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus’s Arch,_ _Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,_ _Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,_ _Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,_ _Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring._ _Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o’ermaster,_ _Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still._ _Is it religion? I ask me; or is it a vain superstition?_ _Slavery abject and gross? service, too feeble, of truth?_ _Is it an idol I bow to, or is it a god that I worship?_ _Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?_ _So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,_ _Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere._ CANTO II. _Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,_ _Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide?_ _Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we find, comprehend not,_ _Here to entice and confuse, tempt and evade us, abide?_ _Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single,_ _Haunts the rude masses of brick garlanded gaily with vine,_ _E’en in the turret fantastic surviving that springs from the ruin,_ _E’en in the people itself? is it illusion or not?_ _Is it illusion or not that attracteth the pilgrim transalpine,_ _Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare?_ _Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger,_ _Brings him with gold to the shrine, brings him in arms to the gate?_ I. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.