They are our past and our future; the poles between
which our desire unceasingly is discharged.
A desire in which love and hatred so perfectly oppose
themselves, that we cannot voluntarily move,
but await the extraordinary compulsion of the deluge
and the earthquake.
Their finish has inspired the limits of all arts and
ascetic movements.
Their affections and indifferences have been a guide
to all reformers and tyrants.
Their appearances in our dreams of machinery have
brought a vision of nude and fabulous epochs.
O  pride so hostile to our charity.
But what their pride has retained, we may by charity
more generously recover.