BETA

I sat beneath an olive’s branches grey,1
And gazed upon the site of a lost town,2
By sage and poet raised to long renown ;3
Where dwelt a race that on the sea held
sway,
4
And, restless as its waters, forced a way5
For civil strife a thousand states to drown,6
That multitudinous stream we now note
down.”
7
As though one life, in birth and in decay.8
But is their being’s history spent and run,9
Whose spirits live in awful singleness,10
Each in its self-formed sphere of light or
gloom ;
11
Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds
then done,
12
Such reverence on me shall its seal im-
press
13
As though I corpses saw, and walked the
tomb.”
14