157 |
The Peace of 1814—Rogers goes to France, Switzerland and Italy—Diary of the Journey—The English in Paris—Napoleon Legends at St. Cloud—Fontainebleau—The journey South—Bossuet’s House—Coppet—Geneva—News from Richard Sharp of Friends at home—Rogers in Venice—Petrarch’s House at Arqua—Florence—A Winter in Rome—Visit to the Pope—Naples and Murat—The Hollands—The Princess of Wales—Bonaparte’s Return from Elba—War Preparations—Homewards through War Alarms—Paestum—The Diary the Germ of ‘Italy.’
I have already said, that as soon as Peace had been concluded,
in April 1814, Rogers began to contemplate a
continental tour. He had never been in Italy, and, indeed, had not had many opportunities
of visiting the Continent at all. Europe had been almost entirely closed to English people
for half a generation. Rogers had been to Paris in 1791, and had seen
the chiefs of the great revolution which was then in its apparently smooth career, with
only the suspicion in the minds of a far-seeing few of the frightful rapids towards which
it was bearing them on. His diary in that memorable visit has been given at full in the
‘Early Life.’ He had
visited Paris again, as I have there recorded, with Fox and Mackintosh and his
brother-in-law Sutton Sharpe, and a great crowd of
artists and statesmen and distinguished people, during the brief gleam of European quiet
which the Peace of Amiens brought in 1802. When that short
158 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
This journey of eight months had a lasting effect on Rogers’s life. He was busy at home with his poem of
‘Human Life,’ but he
appears to have put that work entirely aside for a careful study of Italy. He went there as
the poet and the man of taste, and he made his stay there the opportunity for the
completion of his artistic culture. Nothing escaped his notice, and almost everything he
observed was elaborately described and
THE CONTINENT IN 1814 | 159 |
The Diary begins:—
‘August 20th, 1814.—Set sail at dusk from Brighthelmstone; a thousand sparks of light, like so many little stars, dancing in the dark sea under the boat.’
‘August 21st.—No wind. Hailed by the French pilots.’
‘August 22nd.—Landed at Dieppe as day was breaking, and left it at noon. Harvest people dining in groups by the roadside. A shepherd following his flock and knitting, his staff flung behind him. Descent into Rouen. The cathedral. Over the curtain in the theatre is inscribed Pierre Corneille, and over a small gateway in the rue de la Pie, “Ici est né 9 Juin, 1605, Pierre Corneille.”’
‘August 23rd.—Chalk-hills, cornfields, and orchards. Gathered apples and pears from
the barouche box as we
160 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘August 24th.—Terrace of St. Germains. Malmaison. Avenue from Neuilly to Paris.’
‘August 25th to 28th.—Paris. The region of the Court a blaze of magnificence. Paris, the city of the great king, as London is the city of a great and enlightened people.’
‘August 30th.—Mass in the Royal Chapel. Questions put to us hy the people. Which was the king? Which Monsieur? Who was that lady? “Je l’ai bien vu,” said a Frenchman as the King went by afterwards in his carriage. From the church tower of Montmartre saw the field of battle.’
‘August 31st.—St. Cloud. Conducted through it by a servant who used to sleep by the
bedside of Bonaparte. “He never changed
his servants. A new face was death to him. Seldom slept above four hours. Was never
heard to talk in his sleep. A mouse stirring would wake him. Walked fast with his
eyes on the ground and his hands joined behind him. Spoke seldom and
brusquement (mimicked his talk and his walk). Took coffee
when he rose. Was to be seen there, in that alley, before five o’clock in the
morning. Ate little at dinner, some bouillon, some poulard, that was all, his
snuff-box by his side. Beaucoup de tabac, beaucoup de
café.” The gardener had been there thirteen years, but
said he knew less of him, said he disliked observation and hurried away his servants,
“un homme dur.” The Empress submitted to him in
everything. “They used to breakfast together, à la
fourchette, in that avenue. She sat with
FONTAINEBLEAU IN 1814 | 161 |
‘September 1st.—Grand retrospect of Paris. Forest of Fontainebleau. Walked before the Château by moonlight.’
‘September 2nd.—If walls could speak—those of Fontainebleau—how much would they tell of. The gallery of Francis I., painted in fresco by Primaticcio; the gallery of Diana, the scene of his gallantries; the gallery of the Cerfs, stained with the blood of Mondaleschi; the chambers inhabited successively by the kings of France, their wives, and their mistresses; by Henri IV., by Louis XIV., by Marie Antoinette, by Marie Louise (and all have left their footsteps); the oratory in which for fourteen months the Pope performed his daily devotions; the closet in which Bonaparte signed his abdication; the courtyard in which he took leave of his guards, his carriage at the gate to convey him away to Elba—these now silent and empty serve only to remind us of the fleeting nature of things.
‘Long avenues through the forest; a post-house full of bullets. A Cossack horse. Broken bridges. Cathedral at Sens. The Yonne at Joigny; walked on the bridge by moonlight.’
‘September 3rd.—Auxerre—Avallon. The College. One of the professors saluted me as
the first poet of the age, and in return (could I do less?) I sent him back to render
homage to our fellow traveller as the most upright
162 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘September 4th.—A bleak open country. The Bise blew to-day, and we were glad to warm ourselves at the fire in every post-house. Bock and wood as we draw near Dijon.’
‘September 5th.—Bossuet’s house; now a bookseller’s. His study and little chapel. Before we descended into Dole we found ourselves in the midst of a vast plain bounded by blue hills. Left Dole through a grand avenue; a snow mountain in the S.E. Is it Mont Blanc? A hay harvest. Sunny features under a broad umbrella-like straw hat, which is sometimes slung behind very gracefully.’
‘September 6th.—A fair at Champagnole. Slept at Morez.’
‘September 7th.—Walked a post and a-half to the Bousses. A milk girl climbing the
meadows and singing short stanzas, ending with “la
guerre.” . . . The churchyard of the Rousses looks up a rude valley in which
a little lake is shining, le lac des Rousses, and some heath
ground to the right was pointed out to us that belongs to Madame de Staël, and lies in Switzerland. Three or four leagues
off in this wild region stands the Château de Joux, in which Toussaint breathed his last. Little did the tyrant
believe that he himself should so soon be conveyed in like manner across an ocean, and
to a speck of land so small as to have made its existence denied by those who were sent
to it. Went on, and at a turn of the road had a full view of the glaciers over a dark
wood of firs, the snows of a dazzling brightness, and giving me
FIRST VIEW OF THE ALPS | 163 |
‘My dear Friend,—Here we are in the presence of Mont Blanc; and I cannot tell you what were our feelings yesterday, when, at a turn of the road, as we descended the Jura, the Alps, covered with snow and glistening in a bright sunshine, presented themselves over a fir forest. We declared it to be the most eventful day in our lives; and in less than half an hour we were sitting on a rocky brow, not unlike yours at Ulleswater, and looking down on the Lake of Geneva; Geneva, Ferney, Coppet, Lausanne, Vevay immediately under us, and on the other side Savoy and its mountains in battle array. . . .
‘Normandy is a very pretty country, and certainly worth
seeing, even at the expense of the voyage. Rouen is in a beautiful valley; and
the Seine and its hanging woods and vineyards accompany you most of the way to
Paris; and yet I speak by comparison—with Picardy in my mind, indeed,
with Burgundy, and all I saw till we reached Dijon; for a duller tract of
country, or fitter to
164 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘To-day we went to Ferney, and saw the room as he left it. By we, I mean my sister and myself, for M. [Mackintosh] was engaged to a dinner at Lady Davy’s, and to-night he returns to Coppet. He has promised, however, to meet us at Lausanne, and make the tour of the little Canton with us, and I hope he will, though Madame de Staël,’ and Sismondi are great attractions, and the Hollands are on the road. We passed them at Dijon in the dark. Adieu, my dear friend. What will become of us and where we shall go I cannot say—perhaps to Rome, perhaps to London. At all events, believe me to be,
‘If walls could speak—those of
Fontainebleau—what would they not tell of!—the gallery of
Francis I., the
THE CHATEAU OF FONTAINEBLEAU | 165 |
There are, in the above letter, several points of close similarity with the Diary. I have left them as illustrating the extent to which the letters summarise the contents of the Diary. Richard Sharp’s reply brings us back for a time to what was occurring among Rogers’s more immediate friends and contemporaries at home—
‘My dear Friend,—I cannot tell you how much I am
obliged by your letter from Geneva. Were it not in the highest degree
interesting in itself, I should value it greatly as a proof that you think of
me notwithstanding our distance from each other, and the constant occupations
of a journey in such a country as Switzerland. Would that I had been able to
accompany you, and by your side had first seen the lake and the glaciers in the
166 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I shall follow, I hope, your steps, excepting where you do not encourage me to follow, and at present my notion is that it will be best to go at once to Lyons, omitting Dijon. What struck my brother most was the journey from Geneva to Chamouni, the country about Villeneuve and Vevay, the vales of Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, and the upper end of the lake of Lucerne. He also speaks highly of the passage of the Brunig, and the country about Altdorf. I hope you have gone through these mountainous scenes without more fatigue than has been sufficient to give you a sound sleep at night. Some effort is necessary to stimulate one’s attention.
‘I have but just returned from Cumberland, where I was very lucky in the weather and in my society. I have been travelling with two very excellent persons—Lord Calthorpe and Lady Olivia Sparrow. She is a young and pretty widow, very accomplished and sensible. Both are very intimate with Wilberforce who sits for Lord Calthorpe’s borough, and both are of that sort of serious people who are nicknamed “saints.” I saw Southey often, but Wordsworth was absent at Lowther.
‘From Brougham’s most delightful house and grounds,
RICHARD SHARP AND HIS FRIENDS | 167 |
‘I made a strange astronomical discovery this year, that
the days are as long in September as in June. I had never travelled so late in
the year before, and I
168 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘Southey thinks Wordsworth’s last poem his best,1 but I have not heard what the bookseller reports of the public opinion.
‘Lara and his fair companion 2 are in great request, and are much liked in the country, as well as in town. I was more pleased with “Lara” than I expected, although the faults, especially in expression, are innumerable. I suppose your verse is in great vigour? You will go to Italy, of course, and then, “gratulor Œchaliam,” you will necessarily write in its praise. A mountain air always did agree well with your muse.
‘You will have parted from one of your pleasant companions, whose conversation at Paris, and in Switzerland, must have been invaluable. I have just left your letter under a cover at Clement’s Lane, for Mr. Henry Rogers, and I hope to learn how to address this. You will, I trust, not forget me at Florence, Rome, and Naples, for I am very anxious to learn what impression these places make on you. May your journey be as beneficial to your health, and to Miss Rogers’s, as it must be delightful to both.
1 ‘The Excursion,’ which was published in the summer of 1814. 2 Rogers’s ‘Jacqueline,’ which was published by Mr. Murray in 1814 in the same volume with Byron’s ‘Lara.’ |
SECHERON: GENEVA: FERNEY | 169 |
Going back to the Diary.
‘September 8th.—In the garden at Secheron, met the ex-Empress Marie Louise. Geneva. Walked with Dumont and Sismondi. Calvin’s pulpit. “Ici est né Jean Jacques Rousseau.” “Ici est né Charles Bonnet.” No such inscriptions in London: none for Dryden in Gerrard St., Johnson in Bolt Court, Milton in Bread Street and Bunhill Fields. Ferney. His chamber just as he left it on the morning he set off for Paris, twelve feet by fifteen. Round his bed hang pictures of himself, Le Kain, Frederick, Catharine and Madame de Châtelet, his little seamstress, and a boy who used to pile fagots on his fire. A delightful Situation. Over woods he saw a lake at the foot of the Alps, and many a sunset must he have had, all couleur de rose.’
The journey continued, and the Diary tells day by day of scenes which have since become familiar to most English people. Rogers notes the literary and historic associations of the places seen; spending, for example, at Rousseau’s house, ‘a five minutes such as I never felt before,’ and borrowing Gibbon of a bookseller that he might read on the spot his description of Lausanne. At Zug he parted with Mackintosh, who had proved a very difficult travelling companion. Further portions of the Diary are epitomised in another letter.
‘My dear Friend,—To-day, in my gondola, I vowed I
would write to you to-night, if it was only to tell you to write to me at Rome,
where I hope soon to be. You must have received my letter from Geneva long ago.
170 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF VENICE | 171 |
‘We left Savoy at seven in the morning, and slept in Italy, at Domo d’Ossola, that night. The Lago Maggiore, Milan, the Lago di Garda, Verona, Padua,—what shall I mention next? As for Venice—I seem to wander about in a dream. Am I in St. Mark’s Place? I say to myself. Am I on the Rialto? Do I see the Adriatic?—Nor can I tell you what I felt when the postilion, turning gaily round and pointing with his whip, cried out, “Venezia!” And there it was sure enough, with its long line of domes and turrets, white as marble, and glittering in the sun. If Venice is Venice no longer, as everybody tells me, one can, however, see what was never seen before, at least in the way one would like.
‘This is the Hall of the Senate—this the chamber of the Council of Ten—into that closet (and it was black as black wood could make it) the state prisoner was brought to receive the sentence from the pozzi or the piombi, after which he was led down that narrow, winding staircase (and I shuddered when I attempted to look down it, for it seemed like a well) and across the Ponte dei Sospiri to be strangled in the first dungeon on the left.
‘All this and more I heard with believing ears, such as I wished for at Verona when they showed us Juliet’s coffin in a convent garden.
172 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I think I have made out the best tour in the world for you, I wish I may say for us. At all events, I hope you will not start before my return, that I may at least have a chance. I can save many a weary mile and much perplexity which I have experienced.
‘Mackintosh left us at Zug, to meet his daughter at Basle; we met him again near Sion in the Haut Valais, on his return to Italy. I hope his health is improved, but it suffers greatly in a city like Paris, and I fear he will leave all he has gained, in the evening conversazioni at Talleyrand’s.
‘The Hollands we have met with at Paris, at Geneva, and at Milan. They are now, I believe, at Florence. Ward I met in the street at Milan. He is now, I fancy, on the road to Venice with Poodle Byng. The Princess of Wales came up on foot to our chaise window when we were changing horses within a few miles of Milan. She afterwards invited my sister and myself to a party there, which we could not avail ourselves of, and I flatter myself we shall be good friends when we meet at Florence.
‘What has become of Boddington? We have followed here and there in his track, but never could overtake him. Has he come into Italy? I hope to meet with him in Tuscany—I say, in Tuscany!
‘Oh, if you knew what it was to look upon a lake which Virgil has mentioned, and Catullus has sailed upon, to see a house in which Petrarch has lived, and to stand upon Titian’s grave as I have done, you would instantly pack up and join me.
‘But to talk seriously, is Fredley yours? I hope it is,
and that you by this time possess a fragment of Italian
CORRESPONDENCE WITH RICHARD SHARP | 173 |
‘Remember me kindly to Maltby. I read his name in the book at Schwyz. Does he remember the Lake as seen from the landing-place, or, rather, from the inn door at Brunnen? I shall never forget it.
‘What a strange thing is fashion! Almost every man in Venice but myself wears boots. The men who wait upon us at dinner are like so many jockeys at Newmarket. How inhuman to rob them of the only four horses they had!’
‘My dear Friend,—I am afraid that my letter to Milan did not reach you, and I therefore in this thank you for yours from Geneva, as well as for that from Venice. You are very good. Nothing can so much lessen my regret for not having been able to accompany you as the pleasure that your letters give me.
‘Happening to have nothing of a private nature in them,
and being full of pleasant things, I have read them to others frequently, and
even lent them occasionally, but with many an injunction and many a
denunciation of vengeance against carelessness. It would be mortifying to lose
one, and I will not run the risk, as I foresee that at some time or other they
may be given to the public.
174 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I shall faithfully follow your directions in the journey which I hope to take in the spring; and that I may have a little time to stay in choice places, I think of employing between three and four months in a tour comprehending only Switzerland and the Italian lakes. Mackintosh, Horner, and Bowdler crossed and recrossed the Alps, and I purpose (unless you propose another route) to go by St. Gothard and return by the Simplon. Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples, must be reserved till I can escape, as I intend, from business altogether. Dumont writes that he expects me to fulfil my engagements with him. From this I learn that he means to go back next year, though he is looked for here in a fortnight. You know that he has been chosen a representative in the council of Geneva, where he sits with Pictet and Sismondi, and with other eminent persons.
‘I am not surprised by anything but your candour in
owning that Switzerland, excepting when you looked upon the Alps, rather
disappointed you. The Alps, however, both on distant and on intimate
acquaintance, appear to have greatly transcended your expectations. What would
I not have given to descend from the Jura, to cross the Alps, and to enter
Venice and Rome with you. Yet, though I cannot have the advantage of being your
com-
CORRESPONDENCE WITH RICHARD SHARP | 175 |
‘The grand Chartreuse! Did you go there? I have heard that after the Alps it makes but a feeble impression. The Monastery is now, alas, a saltpetre manufactory; but the Album remains, and in it is to be read the Alcaic ode in Gray’s own handwriting.
‘Boddington tells me that at Florence he got a glimpse of you as you were setting out for Vallombrosa, where, in November, you would find, I guess, the leaves strewn about as in Milton’s simile. What present pleasures! What future recollections! Your Muse must have become already a fine Italian lady.
‘Johnson says that some men learn more in the Hampstead stage than others from the tour of Europe. With such powers of observation and such an imagination as yours how your mind will be strengthened and animated! You will talk and write better than ever with such an accession of topics and of enthusiasm. Shall we not talk of Vallombrosa and the Apennines in St. James’s Street, and in many a town assembly. I have missed you in these places sadly already, and have passed your “shut door with a sigh.” Last Sunday I forgot myself, and actually mounted your steps to knock at the door, habit being too strong for memory.
‘Since my excursion to the Lakes in September, and my
turn-over near Stilton in returning, my occupations have been very dull. Three
days at Romilly’s on Leith Hill
are the only incident of consequence, but I think ot overcoming my aversion to
great houses and of going to Bowood about Christmas. Lord Byron is the only
176 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘The Club met in full strength, where I related your adventures and quoted some of your sayings. I forgot to say that Brougham took me from Ulleswater to his delightful old residence, and showed me his agreeable mother and sister and the river scenery at Lowther. I was very much pleased with Haweswater. Brougham has taken his mother since to Paris and has left her there. She is a niece of your old Edinburgh acquaintance, Dr. Robertson the Historian.
‘At Bolton’s, on Winandermere, I spent a whole
day with Canning, who is now gone to
Lisbon. I then fell into a very pleasant party with whom I lived above a week.
The attractions were: a sensible, amiable man (Lord
Calthorpe), and an extraordinary person, a youngish, handsome,
accomplished widow of great possessions, Lady
Olivia Sparrow, a daughter of the late Lord Gosforth. You must know her, as you visited her father.
They are Wilberforcians, and, like him, she is very lively and very pious. You
will soon go on, I suppose, to Naples, which, we hear by the newspapers, is
made very gay by our Princess, who is
abused in our newspapers for keeping bad company. I can scarcely believe that I
am to direct this letter to the author of “The Pleasures of Memory” and
“Columbus,” at Rome, even Rome itself. If you can spare five
minutes from the Vatican and the Coliseum, pray tell me what you felt on
entering the sacred city. Pray tell Miss
Rogers that I
PETRARCH'S HOUSE AT ARQUA | 177 |
From the date of the last letter to R. Sharp the Diary proceeds. On the 24th they were at Arqua visiting Petrarch’s house.
‘Through a large room, or covered court, we entered a smaller. The
ceiling was divided into small squares, each containing a rose, and the beam that
crossed it was painted in like manner of a dark colour. The upper part of the walls was
painted round, and not ill-painted, in compartments, or rather, a series of pictures in
a slight manner, and in light or faded colours, faded from age, but most probably of an
after time, representing his interviews with Laura,
his grief, and the progress of his passion. In the next room, the ceiling the same,
over the door was his cat, dried, in a glass case with some lines written under it in
Latin hexameters. A third room, less than the second and much less than the first,
contained, behind some old wire trellis, his arm-chair and wardrobe, half perished.
Above lay his inkstand, in bronze—the form very elegant. A winged cupid formed
the stopper, sitting on the top, and the vessel a circular vase with the heads of four
sphinx-like women at the corners, each terminating in a branch or flower; the feet
small and scarcely discernible. The chair was an armchair. Sitting in it, in a closet,
six feet by five, into which another door led, with his head resting upon his
178 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
To Rovigo, to Ferrara—where he visits the hospital of St. Anne in which Tasso was confined, the house of Ariosto and the room in which he died, and the University Library, and remarks, ‘We tread on classic ground, every hill and valley, every bit of pavement in every town “by sacred poets venerable made.”’—to Bologna, then with a muleteer over the mountains to Florence, where they spent ‘the Day of the Dead,’ and lingered, fascinated, more than half the month. Then on to Rome, which was seen in the morning haze on the 24th of November. The greater part of the Diary is written in Rome, where they stayed till the beginning of February. Interspersed with long accounts of the antiquities and descriptions of things seen with Millingen and bought,
1 See the lines in ‘Italy’ on Arqua:—
|
A VISIT TO THE POPE | 179 |
180 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
NAPOLEON'S ESCAPE: WAR PREPARATIONS | 181 |
On the 6th of March, after a visit with Lord
Holland to Pompeii, Rogers was at Lord
Holland’s at night, when the rumour came, ‘Bonaparte gone from Elba.’ Rogers
adds: ‘Fainting of his sister the Queen; many
conjectures;’ ‘un peu d’espoir,’ says Mosbourg, ‘et beaucoup de desespoir.’
There was no reason at present for hurrying home. On the 11th ‘took leave of the
Princess of Wales,’ and on Sunday, the
12th, at a magnificent dinner at the Comte de
Mosbourg’s—‘a dinner without end’—and a Ball
afterwards; he records, ‘Few Neapolitans there. Many rumours and much
anxiety.’ On the 18th, ‘left Naples, a band of music playing God save
the King and other tunes at our door. First to Rome, then to Florence, where one day
Du Cane, Fazakerley, and Lord John Russell
came to dinner, and Rogers writes: ‘After all Florence
strikes me most. I acknowledge the grandeur of Rome, the beauty of Naples, but Florence
has won my heart, and in Florence I should wish to live of all the cities of the world.
Rome is sad, Naples is gay, but in Florence there is a cheerfulness, a classic
elegance, that at once fills and gladdens the heart.’ On Monday, April the
3rd: ‘Waked in the night by the baggage and carriages of the old King of Spain passing under the window. A bright
moonshine. Overtook them afterwards in a state of hesitation, some returning, those in
advance having been
182 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
These brief extracts from a voluminous Diary may suffice. All the way home through the Tyrol and down the Rhine through Holland, and over Belgium, there were the signs and sounds of war. Brussels itself was all gaiety and warlike preparation, and Lord Wellington was already there. The road to Ostend was full of English cavalry, and at Ostend itself horses were being slung ashore from English transports, and cannon-balls being landed. As I have given only brief extracts from the more personal references in the Diary, it is only just to add one of the descriptive and reflective passages of which it is full.
‘Country open and level; did not see the Paestum Temples till we
approached them. The temples in a plain, on three sides shut in by the mountains, on
the
THE TEMPLES AT PAESTUM | 183 |
184 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
These remarks, written in haste in the evening after the visit, compared with the lines headed ‘Paestum’ in the second part of ‘Italy,’ sufficiently show how the Diary formed the basis of the poem.
They stand between the mountains and the sea,
Awful memorials, but of whom we know not.
The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck,
The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak,
Points to the work of magic and moves on.
.......
How many centuries did the sun go round
From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea,
While, by some spell rendered invisible,
Or, if approached, approached by him alone
Who saw as though he saw not, they remained
As in the darkness of a sepulchre
Waiting the appointed time! All, all within
Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right
And taken to herself what man renounced;
No cornice, triglyph or worn abacus,
But with thick ivy hung or branching fern;
Their iron-brown o’erspread with brightest verdure.
.......
How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs
Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round
On the rough pediment to sit and sing;
Or the green lizard rustling through the grass,
And up the fluted shaft with short, quick spring,
To vanish through the chinks that Time has made.
In such an hour as this, the sun’s broad disc
Seen at his setting, and a flood of light
Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries
(Gigantic shadows, broken and confused
Athwart the innumerable columns flung);
In such an hour he came, who saw and told,
Led by the mighty Genius of the Place.
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