Canto XCVI
You leave us: you will see the Rhine,And those fair hills I sail’d below,When I was there with him; and goBy summer belts of wheat and vine
To where he breathed his latest breath,That City. All her splendour seemsNo livelier than the wisp that gleamsOn Lethe in the eyes of Death.
Let her great Danube rolling fairEnwind her isles, unmarked of me:I have not seen, I will not seeVienna; rather dream that there,
A treble darkness, evil hauntsThe birth, the bridal; friend from friend,Is oftener parted, fathers bendAbove more graves, a thousand wants
Gnarr at the heels of men, and preyBy each cold hearth, and sadness flingsHer shadow on the blaze of kings:And yet myself have heard him say,
That not in any mother townWith statelier progress to and froThe double tides of chariots flowBy park and suburb under brown
Of lustier leaves; nor more content,He told me, lives in any crowd,When all is gay with lamps, and loudWith sport and song, in booth and tent,
Imperial halls, or open plain;And wheels the circled dance, and breaksThe rocket molten into flakesOf crimson or in emerald rain.