University of Virginia Library

“All is nought,
All lived and loved elsewhere, when matched with Rome.
I deemed myself a student amply armed
With bookish preparation, and that here
I should but see the treasures I surmised.
The veriest catechumen, I have passed,
With Passionei, Giacomelli, Mengs,
Corsini, and Cantucci, most of all
With Cardinal Albani, step by step,
Into Art's inmost mysteries, and now,
I live their equal, I the cobbler's son,
Spurned in the insolent and servile North,
Where all are clowns together. When I wake,
My princely Master—Master, but because
I love to call him so,—doth mount and sit
Familiar in my chamber, to discuss
The missing limbs of torso late unearthed
By some unlettered spade, and bids me choose
To-morrow's excavation, just as though
I were the Cardinal, and he the clerk
To register my wish. What men are these!
He but the first, the rest so like to him
In loveliness and largeness of their lives,
And speculations spacious as the dome
That copes the Roman ether, and as free
From matters' cloudy superfluities.
The titled boors of Brandenburg that scorned
My learning as my lineage, use their gold,
Lords of unlovely luxury, to scoop
Their swine-troughs deeper, grossly surfeiting
Their nether nature. Prince and Cardinal,
Whose veins are channels for the far-off blood
Of Alba or Lanuvium, consume
Their substance, as themselves, in marble Heavens
For Gods to haunt, and all mankind to scan,
Diviner for the seeing. Never here
Is homage to the menial body paid.
The mind alone is guest. No cushioned comfort
Distracts from limbs of beauty, brows of thought,
Nor is the ostentatious banquet spread,
Circean. 'Tis the soul alone that feasts;
Unclouded by the cup.