Why is, and whence, the Po in flames? and why <br />In consternation do its borderers raise <br />Imploring hands to mortal men around <br />And Gods above? Are Gods implacable? <br />Or men bereft of sight at such a blaze? <br />Apollo hath no more a son; his breath <br />Is stifled, and smoke only fills the air <br />Where once was fire, and men to men were true. <br />Fierce ones and faithless now approach the waste, <br />Who look transversely with an evil eye, <br />And scowl and threaten, and uplift the sword, <br />And, if they lower it, 'tis but to grasp more <br />And more of amber left on either bank. Apollo hates the land he once so loved, <br />Nor swan is seen nor nightingale is heard <br />Nigh the dead river and affrighted vale, <br />For every Nymph shed there incessant tears, <br />And into amber hardened all they shed.<br /><br />Walter Savage Landor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-conflagration-of-the-po/
