PART I.
[The "Roman Elegies" were written in the same year as the "Venetian Epigrams"—viz., 1790.]
Speak, ye stones, I entreat! Oh, speak, ye palaces lofty!
Utter a word, oh, ye streets! Wilt thou not, Genius; awake?
All that thy sacred walls, eternal Rome, hold within them
Teemeth with life; but to me all is still silent and dead.
Oh, who will whisper unto me,—when shall I see at the casement
That one beauteous form, which, while it scorcheth, revives?
Can I as yet not discern the road, on which I for ever
To her and from her shall go, heeding not time as it flies?
Still do I mark the churches, palaces, ruins, and columns,
As a wise traveller should, would he his journey improve.
Soon all this will be past; and then will there be but one temple,
Amor's temple alone, where the Initiate may go.
Thou art indeed a world, O Rome; and yet were Love absent,
