Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/36

The toilsome step up the proud Palatin,
Thro' spiry cypress groves, and tow'ring pine,
Waving aloft o'er the big ruin's brows,55
On num'rous arches rear'd; and, frequent stopp'd,
The sunk ground startles me with dreadful chasm,
Breathing forth darkness from the vast profound
Of aisles and halls within the mountain's womb.
Nor these the nether works; all these beneath,60
And all beneath the vales and hills around,
Extend the cavern'd sewers, massy, firm,
As the Sibylline grot beside the dead
Lake of Avernus; such the sewers huge,
Whither the great Tarquinian genius dooms65
Each wave impure; and proud with added rains,
Hark how the mighty billows lash their vaults,
And thunder! how they heave their rocks in vain!
Tho' now incessant time has roll'd around
A thousand winters o'er the changeful world,70
And yet a thousand since, th' indignant floods
Roar loud in their firm bounds, and dash and swell
In vain, convey'd to Tiber's lowest wave.
Hence over airy plains, by crystal founts,
That weave their glitt'ring wave with tuneful lapse75
Among the sleeky pebbles, agate clear,
Cerulean ophite, and the flow'ry vein
Of orient jasper, pleas'd I move along,
And vases boss'd, and huge inscriptive stones,
And intermingling vines, and figur'd nymphs,80
Floras and Chloes of delicious mould,
Cheering the darkness; and deep empty tombs,
And dells, and mould'ring shrines, with old decay
Rustic and green, and wide-em bow'ring shades,
Shot from the crooked clefts of nodding tow'rs; 85
A solemn wilderness! with error sweet
I wind the lingering step, where'er the path