And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny. - William Wordsworth

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; And was the safeguard of the west: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.

Thence did I drink the visionary power;
And deem not profitless those fleeting moods
Of shadowy exultation: not for this,
That they are kindred to our purer mind
And intellectual life; but that the soul,
Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity, whereto
With faculties still growing, feeling still
That whatsoever point they gain, they yet
Have something to pursue.

Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her.