One day I climbed up to the ridgy top
Of the cloud-piercing Hæmus, where, among
The eagles and the thunders, from that height,
I looked upon the world, as far as where,
Wrestling with storms, the gloomy Euxine chafed
On his recoiling shores; and where dim Adria
In her blue bosom quenched the fiery sphere.
Between those surges lay a land, might once
Have matched Elysium; but Rome had made it
A Tartarus. In my green youth I looked