Art: VISIONARIES' CAPITAL

In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom, Come, let me lead thee o'er this 'second Rome' . . . This embryo capital, where fancy sees Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees; Which second-sighted seers e-v'n now adorn With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn Though naught but woods and Jefferson they see, Where streets should run and sages ought to be.

IRISH Poet Thomas Moore composed this rhymed raspberry on a visit to Washington in 1804. During the century and a half since then, the seers Moore sneered at have been vindicated. Washington is...

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