On such memorials unconcerned we gaze;
No trace remaining of the glow divine,
Wherewith, dear Walter! in our Eton days
We eyed a fragment from the Palatine.
How rich to us th' Imperial City seemed,
Whose meanest relic vied with any gem!
The costly stones on kingly crowns that gleamed
Possessed small beauty, if compared with them.
Cellini's workmanship could nothing add,
Nor the Pope's blessing, nor a case of gold,
To the strange value every pebble had
O'er which perchance the Tiber's wave had rolled.
It fired us then to trace upon the map
The forum's line, the Pincian garden's paths;
Ay, or to finger but a stucco scrap
Or marble shred from Caracalla's baths.
A like enchantment all thy land pervades,
Mellows the sunshine, softens autumn's breeze;
O'erhangs the mouldering town and chestnut shades,
And glows and sparkles in the golden seas.
No such a spell the charm'd adventurer guides
Who seeks those ruins hid in Yucatan,
Where through the tropic forest silent glides,
By crumbled fane and idol, slow Copan.
There, as the weedy pyramid he climbs,
Or notes, mid groves that rankly wave above,
The work of nameless hands in unknown times,
Much wakes his wonder—nothing stirs his love.
Art's rude beginnings, wheresoever found,
The same dull chord of feeling faintly strike;
The Druid's pillar, and the Indian mound,
And Uxmal's monuments, are mute alike.
Nor here, although the gorgeous year hath brought
Crimson October's beautiful decay,
Can all this loveliness inspire a thought
Beyond the marvels of the fleeting day.
For here the Present overpowers the Past;
No recollections to these woods belong,
(O'er which no minstrelsy its veil hath cast)
To rouse our worship, or supply my song.