Classic Poem

If the romantic land whose soil I tread
Could give back all its passions—first and last—
Awaking from their dust her fiery dead,
And with them all the history of the past,
No light upon my visions could they shed,
No balm upon my wounded spirit cast:
For me there is no help, no hope, no cure,
I have but to dissemble and endure.

Those very dead—with whom I 've lived so long
That I might lose the living—all combined—
Told or untold their fate, in tale or song,
Could bring no new emotion to my mind;
All known, and all unknown, of right or wrong,
Might come and go, and leave no trace behind.
My heart is stagnant,—Life exhausted shrinks,
Earth fades, and even the flame ethereal sinks.