And I, like this old beam, in vain escaped
The burning, shall be cast out, nor find place
In the new Rome that Cæsar promises,
O’erlaid with perfected monotony,
The textbook ornaments of shallow taste,
Imperial gewgaws.—What poet was it said
That Desolation was a beautiful thing?
What parricidal spirit? To cut down
And burn the gnarl’d trunk of a thousand years,
And plant the trifling shoot of one gay summer