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| I CAME, great bard, to gaze upon thy shrine, | |
| And o’er thy relics wait the inspiring Nine: | |
| For sure, I said, where Maro’s ashes sleep, | |
| The weeping Muses must their vigils keep: | |
| Still o’er their favorite’s monument they mourn, | 5 |
| And with poetic trophies grace his urn: | |
| Have placed the shield and martial trumpet here; | |
| The shepherd’s pipe, and rural honors there: | |
| Fancy had decked the consecrated ground, | |
| And scattered never-fading roses round. | 10 |
| And now my bold romantic thought aspires | |
| To hear the echo of celestial lyres; | |
| Then catch some sound to bear delighted home, | |
| And boast I learnt the verse at Virgil’s tomb; | |
| Or stretched beneath thy myrtle’s fragrant shade, | 15 |
| With dreams ecstatic hovering o’er my head, | |
| See forms august, and laurelled ghosts ascend, | |
| And with thyself, perhaps, the long procession end. | |
| I came,—but soon the phantoms disappeared; | |
| Far other scenes than wanton Hope had reared; | 20 |
| No faery rites, no funeral pomp I found; | |
| No trophied walls with wreaths of laurel round: | |
| A mean unhonored ruin faintly showed | |
| The spot where once thy mausoleum stood: | |
| Hardly the form remained; a nodding dome | 25 |
| O’ergrown with moss is now all Virgil’s tomb. | |
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