Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Ruins of Cornelia’s House
By Sir Aubrey de Vere (1788–1846)I
Tombs of corrupt delight, old walls the pride
Of statesmen pleased for respite brief to hide
Their laurelled foreheads in the Muses’ bower,
And seek Cornelia’s home. At sunset’s hour
How oft her eyes, that wept no more, descried
Yon purpling hills! How oft she heard that tide
Fretting as now low cave or hollow tower!
The mother of the Gracchi! Scipio’s child!—
’T was virtue such as hers that built her Rome!
Never towards it she gazed! Far off her home
She made, like her great father self-exiled.
Woe to the nations when the souls they bare,
Their best and bravest, choose their rest elsewhere!