Lord Byron.
On the AEgean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades;
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.
_Paradise Regained, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand;
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles.
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more.
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear.
_Childe Harold, Canto IV_. LORD BYRON.
O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires!
* * * * *
The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago.
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