Yet there are griefs which our consoling sky
May not efface: but where will grief convey
Noble and soft impressions to the soul,
As it does here?
Elsewhere the living cannot find them space
For all their hurrying paths, and ardent hopes;
And deserts, ruins, vacant palaces,
Leave a vast vacancy to shadows;—Rome,
Is she not now the country of the tomb?
The Coliseum, and the obelisks—
The wonders brought from Egypt and from Greece—
From the extremity of time, here met,
From Romulus to Leo,—all are here,
Greatness attracting greatness, that one place
Might garner all that man could screen from time:
All consecrate to funeral monuments.
Our idle life is scarcely here perceived:
The silence of the living to the dead
Is homage: they endure, but we decay.
The dead alone are honour'd, and alone
Recorded still;—our destinies obscure
