How many ties did that stern moment tear! 
   From thy Sire’s to his humblest subject’s breast
   Is linked the electric chain of that despair,
   Whose shock was as an earthquake’s, and oppressed
The land which loved thee so, that none could love thee best.

CLXXIII.

   Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills
   So far, that the uprooting wind which tears
   The oak from his foundation, and which spills
   The ocean o’er its boundary, and bears
   Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
   The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
   And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears
   A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

CLXXIV.

   And near Albano’s scarce divided waves
   Shine from a sister valley;—­and afar
   The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
   The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
   ‘Arms and the Man,’ whose reascending star
   Rose o’er an empire,—­but beneath thy right
   Tully reposed from Rome;—­and where yon bar
   Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight,
The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard’s delight.

CLXXV.

   But I forget.—­My pilgrim’s shrine is won,
   And he and I must part,—­so let it be, —
   His task and mine alike are nearly done;
   Yet once more let us look upon the sea: 
   The midland ocean breaks on him and me,
   And from the Alban mount we now behold
   Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we
   Beheld it last by Calpe’s rock unfold
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled

CLXXVI.

   Upon the blue Symplegades:  long years —
   Long, though not very many—­since have done
   Their work on both; some suffering and some tears
   Have left us nearly where we had begun: 
   Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run,
   We have had our reward—­and it is here;
   That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun,
   And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.

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.