XVI
As we gaze from afar on the waves roar
Mountains of water now set in motion,
A thousand breakers of cliff-jarring ocean,
Striking the reef, driven in the wind's maw:
View now a fierce northerly, with emotion,
Stirring the storm to its loud-whistling core,
Then folding in air its vaster wing once more
Suddenly weary, as if at some new notion:
As we see a flame, spread in a hundred places,
Gather, in one flare, towards heaven's spaces,
Then powerless fade and die: so, in its day,
This Empire passed, and all
Like wave, or wind, or flame, along its way,
Halted at last by Fate, sank here, in fall.
As we gaze from afar on the waves roar
Mountains of water now set in motion,
A thousand breakers of cliff-jarring ocean,
Striking the reef, driven in the wind's maw:
View now a fierce northerly, with emotion,
Stirring the storm to its loud-whistling core,
Then folding in air its vaster wing once more
Suddenly weary, as if at some new notion:
As we see a flame, spread in a hundred places,
Gather, in one flare, towards heaven's spaces,
Then powerless fade and die: so, in its day,
This Empire passed, and all
Like wave, or wind, or flame, along its way,
Halted at last by Fate, sank here, in fall.
Du Bellay - The Ruins of Rome
