To thee I may repeat it, others gay
Will laugh at my dark fancy; not long past
The time I was by that enchanting bay
Of the Tyrrhenian sea; the city vast,
Mother of pleasures, I forsook, and bent,
Absorb’d, my feeble steps, where lowly lies
Pompeii; palaces with gardens blent
And fountains brilliant, shone before my eyes;
But deeper penetrates the mind, and sad,
Slowly along I went with heavy heart: