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Sonnet.
I stood upon St. Peter's battlement,
And my eye wander'd o'er Imperial Rome,
And I thought sadly on the fatal doom
'Neath which her ancient palaces had bent;
Of temple and tower outrageously uprent,
Or mouldered into dust by slow decay:
Of halls where godlike Cæsar once bore sway,
Or glorious Tully fulmin'd eloquent!
So shall all earthly sade! what wonder then,
If Time can make such all-unsparing wreck,
If neither genius, art, nor skill of men,
Can e'en pretend his felon-hand to check,
That this old coat, I've worn these three years past,
Should on each elbow want a patch at last?
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