CLXXIV. And near, Albano's scarce divided waves The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight." CLXXV. But I forget.-My Pilgrim's shrine is won, His task and mine alike are nearly done; And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd CLXXVI. Upon the blue Symplegades: long years- Have left us nearly where we had begun : CLXXVII. Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye elements!-in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted-Can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, CLXXIX. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. CLXXX. His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay. CLXXXI The armaments which thunderstrike the walls CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free,“ And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou ;— Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. |