On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

My spirit is too weak—mortalityWeighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,And each imagin'd pinnacle and steepOf godlike hardship tells me I must dieLike a sick Eagle looking at the sky.Yet 't is a gentle luxury to weepThat I have not the cloudy winds to keep,Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.Such dim-conceivèd glories of the brainBring round the heart an indescribable feud;So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rudeWasting of old Time—with a billowy main—A sun—a shadow of a magnitude.