O’er the Campagna’s wastes of feverous blight
I’ve watched St. Peter’s mighty dome expand
In soaring cycloids to the infinite,
When heaven was blue and bland.
When storm was on the mountains and the sea,
Have seen its whole empyreal glory tost
Like shipwreck on a wild immensity,
That heaved without a coast.
But it was grand through all. From far or near,
It seemed too vast for heresies or schisms;