Whoe'er of pencil master was or stile

Displayed moreo'er the adamantine pavement
  How unto his own mother made Alcmaeon
  Costly appear the luckless ornament;

Displayed how his own sons did throw themselves
  Upon Sennacherib within the temple,
  And how, he being dead, they left him there;

Displayed the ruin and the cruel carnage
  That Tomyris wrought, when she to Cyrus said,
  "Blood didst thou thirst for, and with blood I glut thee!"

Displayed how routed fled the Assyrians
  After that Holofernes had been slain,
  And likewise the remainder of that slaughter.

I saw there Troy in ashes and in caverns;
  O Ilion! thee, how abject and debased,
  Displayed the image that is there discerned!

Whoe'er of pencil master was or stile,
  That could portray the shades and traits which there
  Would cause each subtile genius to admire?

Dead seemed the dead, the living seemed alive;
  Better than I saw not who saw the truth,
  All that I trod upon while bowed I went.

Now wax ye proud, and on with looks uplifted,
  Ye sons of Eve, and bow not down your faces
  So that ye may behold your evil ways!

More of the mount by us was now encompassed,
  And far more spent the circuit of the sun,
  Than had the mind preoccupied imagined,

When he, who ever watchful in advance
  Was going on, began: "Lift up thy head,
  'Tis no more time to go thus meditating.