Quotes from Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1840

The true poetry of Rome lived in its institutions... from such a rhythm and order in the shows of life, to those who were at once the poets and the actors of these immortal dramas... the consequence was empire, and the reward everlasting fame. These things are not the less poetry... They are the episodes of that cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of men. The Past, like an inspired rhapsodist, fills the theatre of everlasting generations with their harmony.