Oh , thou old heartless Sea, without a tide
To bless thee with its changing! Ah, poor Sea!
How idly beat thy waves, how languidly
On Baiae's piers, or Adria's level side!
Eternal sunset round old Greece doth play:
All faint and wan Rome's last imperial smile
Yet lingers in each Hellespontine bay.
Still at his mouths the melancholy Nile
Talks to himself of Egypt's kingly day.
A belt of goodly towns have ruins hoar,
Silent as tombs, on Libya's blighted shore;
And Venice woos her blue canals no more:
Yet for all this no heart is in thy waves,
Thou heavy Sea of shadows and of graves!