"Look to the earth, I said, and say again:

When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm

Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign,

The world and he both wore a different form,

And much of earth and all the watery plain

Of Ocean called him king: through many a storm

His isles had floated on the abyss of Time;

For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.[521]