Full oft, our wish obtained, deeply we sigh;
Yet not unrecompensed are they who learn, 10
From that depression raised, to mount on high
With stronger wing, more clearly to discern
Eternal things; and, if need be, defy
Change, with a brow not insolent, though stern.
[107] The Tarpeian rock, from which those condemned to death were hurled, is not now precipitous, as it used to be: the ground having been much raised by successive heaps of ruin.—Ed.
IV
AT ROME—REGRETS—IN ALLUSION TO NIEBUHR AND OTHER MODERN HISTORIANS
Those old credulities, to nature dear,
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock