Lord Byron – Childe Harold Canto 4 part 6
“Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!” as Childe Harold falls in love with the destination of his pilgrimage, he finds “A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay”. His pilgrimage has taught him ” We but feel our way to err; the ocean hath his chart, the stars their map,…” but as for man “now we clap our hands, and cry ‘Eureka!’ it is clear – when but some false mirage of ruin rises near”. He longs for the world with “That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!”; – “Her rush of wings – Oh ! she who was Almighty hail’d!”. Questioning the “she-wolf” mother, he asks “And thou, the thunder – stricken nurse of Rome!…. -dost thou yet guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?”. He concludes “Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, and all things weigh’d in custom’s falsest scale;…”; Men “Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage within the same arena where they see their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.”.
