Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts
  His shadow stretching towards Syracuse, [L]
  The city of Timoleon! [M] Righteous Heaven! 
  How are the mighty prostrated!  They first, 380
  They first of all that breathe should have awaked
  When the great voice was heard from out the tombs
  Of ancient heroes.  If I suffered grief
  For ill-requited France, by many deemed
  A trifler only in her proudest day; 385
  Have been distressed to think of what she once
  Promised, now is; a far more sober cause
  Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land. 
  To the reanimating influence lost
  Of memory, to virtue lost and hope, 390
  Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn.

    But indignation works where hope is not,
  And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed.  There is
  One great society alone on earth: 
  The noble Living and the noble Dead. 395

    Thine be such converse strong and sanative,
  A ladder for thy spirit to reascend
  To health and joy and pure contentedness;
  To me the grief confined, that thou art gone
  From this last spot of earth, where Freedom now 400
  Stands single in her only sanctuary;
  A lonely wanderer art gone, by pain
  Compelled and sickness, [N] at this latter day,
  This sorrowful reverse for all mankind. 
  I feel for thee, must utter what I feel:  405
  The sympathies erewhile in part discharged,
  Gather afresh, and will have vent again: 
  My own delights do scarcely seem to me
  My own delights; the lordly Alps themselves,
  Those rosy peaks, from which the Morning looks 410
  Abroad on many nations, are no more
  For me that image of pure gladsomeness
  Which they were wont to be.  Through kindred scenes,
  For purpose, at a time, how different! 
  Thou tak’st thy way, carrying the heart and soul 415
  That Nature gives to Poets, now by thought
  Matured, and in the summer of their strength. 
  Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,
  On Etna’s side; and thou, O flowery field
  Of Enna! [O] is there not some nook of thine, 420
  From the first play-time of the infant world
  Kept sacred to restorative delight,
  When from afar invoked by anxious love?

    Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,
  Ere yet familiar with the classic page, 425
  I learnt to dream of Sicily; and lo,
  The gloom, that, but a moment past, was deepened
  At thy command, at her command gives way;
  A pleasant promise, wafted from her shores,
  Comes o’er my heart:  in fancy I behold 430
  Her seas yet smiling, her once happy vales;