Page:Poems and extracts - Wordsworth.djvu/93

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The Ruins of Rome

——————Dyer.

Fallen, fallen, a silent heap!
Behold the pride of pomp,
The throne of nations, fall'n! obscured in dust;
Even yet niajestical: the solemn scene
Elates the soul, while now the rising sun
Flames on the ruins in the purer air
Towering aloft upon the glittering plain.
Like broken rocks, a vast circumference!
Rent palaces, crushed columns, rifled moles.
Fanes roll'd on fanes, and tombs on buried tombs!
Deep lies in dust the Theban obelisk11
Immense along the waste; minuter art,
Gliconian forms, or Phidian, subtly fair,
0'erwhelming; as the vast leviathan
The finny brood, when near Irene's shore

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