Aught that recalls the daily drug which turnedMy sickening memory; and, though Time hath taughtMy mind to meditate what then it learned,Yet such the fixed inveteracy wroughtBy the impatience of my early thought,That, with the freshness wearing out beforeMy mind could relish what it might have sought,If free to choose, I cannot now restoreIts health; but what it then detested, still abhor.
LXXVII.
Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curseTo understand, not feel, thy lyric flow,To comprehend, but never love thy verse,Although no deeper moralist rehearseOur little life, nor bard prescribe his art,Nor livelier satirist the conscience pierce,Awakening without wounding the touched heart,Yet fare thee well—upon Soracte's ridge we part.
LXXVIII.
O Rome! my country! city of the soul!The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,Lone mother of dead empires! and controlIn their shut breasts their petty misery.What are our woes and sufferance? Come and seeThe cypress, hear the owl, and plod your wayO'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!Whose agonies are evils of a day—A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
LXXIX.
The Niobe of nations! there she stands,Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;An empty urn within her withered hands,Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;The very sepulchres lie tenantlessOf their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress!
LXXX.
The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire,Have dwelt upon the seven-hilled city's pride:She saw her glories star by star expire,And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wideTemple and tower went down, nor left a site;—Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,And say, 'Here was, or is,' where all is doubly night?
LXXXI.
The double night of ages, and of her,Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt, and wrapAll round us; we but feel our way to err:The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map;And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;But Rome is as the desert, where we steerStumbling o'er recollections: now we clapOur hands, and cry, 'Eureka!' it is clear—When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
LXXXII.
Alas, the lofty city! and alasThe trebly hundred triumphs! and the dayWhen Brutus made the dagger's edge surpassThe conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,And Livy's pictured page! But these shall beHer resurrection; all beside—decay.Alas for Earth, for never shall we seeThat brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!
LXXXIII.
O thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdueThy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feelThe wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the dueOf hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flewO'er prostrate Asia;—thou, who with thy frownAnnihilated senates—Roman, too,With all thy vices, for thou didst lay downWith an atoning smile a more than earthly crown—
LXXXIV.
The dictatorial wreath,—couldst thou divineTo what would one day dwindle that which madeThee more than mortal? and that so supineBy aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid?She who was named eternal, and arrayedHer warriors but to conquer—she who veiledEarth with her haughty shadow, and displayedUntil the o'er-canopied horizon failed,Her rushing wings—Oh! she who was almighty hailed!
LXXXV.
Sylla was first of victors; but our own,The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell!—heToo swept off senates while he hewed the throneDown to a block—immortal rebel! SeeWhat crimes it costs to be a moment freeAnd famous through all ages! But beneathHis fate the moral lurks of destiny;His day of double victory and deathBeheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath.
LXXXVI.
The third of the same moon whose former courseHad all but crowned him, on the self-same dayDeposed him gently from his throne of force,And laid him with the earth's preceding clay.And showed not Fortune thus how fame and sway,And all we deem delightful, and consumeOur souls to compass through each arduous way,Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb?Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom!
LXXXVII.
And thou, dread statue! yet existent inThe austerest form of naked majesty,Thou who beheldest, mid the assassins' din,At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar lie,Folding his robe in dying dignity,An offering to thine altar from the queenOf gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die,And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye beenVictors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?
LXXXVIII.
And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impartThe milk of conquest yet within the domeWhere, as a monument of antique art,Thou standest:—Mother of the mighty heart,Which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat,Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart,And thy limbs blacked with lightning—dost thou yetGuard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?
LXXXIX.
Thou dost;—but all thy foster-babes are dead—The men of iron; and the world hath rearedCities from out their sepulchres: men bledIn imitation of the things they feared,And fought and conquered, and the same course steered,At apish distance; but as yet none have,Nor could, the same supremacy have neared,Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave,
XC.
The fool of false dominion—and a kindOf bastard Caesar, following him of oldWith steps unequal; for the Roman's mindWas modelled in a less terrestrial mould,With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,And an immortal instinct which redeemedThe frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold.Alcides with the distaff now he seemedAt Cleopatra's feet, and now himself he beamed.
XCI.
And came, and saw, and conquered. But the manWho would have tamed his eagles down to flee,Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,With a deaf heart which never seemed to beA listener to itself, was strangely framed;With but one weakest weakness—vanity:Coquettish in ambition, still he aimedAt what? Can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?
XCII.
And would be all or nothing—nor could waitFor the sure grave to level him; few yearsHad fixed him with the Caesars in his fate,On whom we tread: For THIS the conqueror rearsThe arch of triumph! and for this the tearsAnd blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,An universal deluge, which appearsWithout an ark for wretched man's abode,And ebbs but to reflow!—Renew thy rainbow, God!
XCIII.
What from this barren being do we reap?Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale;Opinion an omnipotence, whose veilMantles the earth with darkness, until rightAnd wrong are accidents, and men grow paleLest their own judgments should become too bright,And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.
XCIV.
And thus they plod in sluggish misery,Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,Bequeathing their hereditary rageTo the new race of inborn slaves, who wageWar for their chains, and rather than be free,Bleed gladiator-like, and still engageWithin the same arena where they seeTheir fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.
XCV.
I speak not of men's creeds—they rest betweenMan and his Maker—but of things allowed,Averred, and known,—and daily, hourly seen—The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,And the intent of tyranny avowed,The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grownThe apes of him who humbled once the proud,And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.
XCVI.
Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,And Freedom find no champion and no childSuch as Columbia saw arise when sheSprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roarOf cataracts, where nursing nature smiledOn infant Washington? Has Earth no moreSuch seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?
XCVII.
But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,And fatal have her Saturnalia beenTo Freedom's cause, in every age and clime;Because the deadly days which we have seen,And vile Ambition, that built up betweenMan and his hopes an adamantine wall,And the base pageant last upon the scene,Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrallWhich nips Life's tree, and dooms man's worst—his second fall.
XCVIII.
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,Streams like the thunder-storm AGAINST the wind;Thy trumpet-voice, though broken now and dying,The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,But the sap lasts,—and still the seed we findSown deep, even in the bosom of the North;So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.
XCIX.
There is a stern round tower of other days,Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,Such as an army's baffled strength delays,Standing with half its battlements alone,And with two thousand years of ivy grown,The garland of eternity, where waveThe green leaves over all by time o'erthrown:What was this tower of strength? within its caveWhat treasure lay so locked, so hid?—A woman's grave.
C.
But who was she, the lady of the dead,Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?Worthy a king's—or more—a Roman's bed?What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?What daughter of her beauties was the heir?How lived—how loved—how died she? Was she notSo honoured—and conspicuously there,Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?
CI.
Was she as those who love their lords, or theyWho love the lords of others? such have beenEven in the olden time, Rome's annals say.Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen,Profuse of joy; or 'gainst it did she war,Inveterate in virtue? Did she leanTo the soft side of the heart, or wisely barLove from amongst her griefs?—for such the affections are.
CII.
Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bowedWith woes far heavier than the ponderous tombThat weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloudMight gather o'er her beauty, and a gloomIn her dark eye, prophetic of the doomHeaven gives its favourites—early death; yet shedA sunset charm around her, and illumeWith hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.
CIII.
Perchance she died in age—surviving all,Charms, kindred, children—with the silver greyOn her long tresses, which might yet recall,It may be, still a something of the dayWhen they were braided, and her proud arrayAnd lovely form were envied, praised, and eyedBy Rome—But whither would Conjecture stray?Thus much alone we know—Metella died,The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride!
CIV.
I know not why—but standing thus by theeIt seems as if I had thine inmate known,Thou Tomb! and other days come back on meWith recollected music, though the toneIs changed and solemn, like the cloudy groanOf dying thunder on the distant wind;Yet could I seat me by this ivied stoneTill I had bodied forth the heated mind,Forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind;
CV.
And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks,Built me a little bark of hope, once moreTo battle with the ocean and the shocksOf the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roarWhich rushes on the solitary shoreWhere all lies foundered that was ever dear:But could I gather from the wave-worn storeEnough for my rude boat, where should I steer?There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.
CVI.
Then let the winds howl on! their harmonyShall henceforth be my music, and the nightThe sound shall temper with the owlet's cry,As I now hear them, in the fading lightDim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,Answer each other on the Palatine,With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright,And sailing pinions.—Upon such a shrineWhat are our petty griefs?—let me not number mine.
CVII.
Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grownMatted and massed together, hillocks heapedOn what were chambers, arch crushed, column strownIn fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steepedIn subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,Deeming it midnight:—Temples, baths, or halls?Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reapedFrom her research hath been, that these are walls—Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls.
CVIII.
There is the moral of all human tales:'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,First Freedom, and then Glory—when that fails,Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarism at last.And History, with all her volumes vast,Hath but ONE page,—'tis better written here,Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassedAll treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask—Away with words! draw near,
CIX.
Admire, exult—despise—laugh, weep—for hereThere is such matter for all feeling:—Man!Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,Ages and realms are crowded in this span,This mountain, whose obliterated planThe pyramid of empires pinnacled,Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the vanTill the sun's rays with added flame were filled!Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build?
CX.
Tully was not so eloquent as thou,Thou nameless column with the buried base!What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow?Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place.Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,Titus or Trajan's? No; 'tis that of Time:Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace,Scoffing; and apostolic statues climbTo crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,
CXI.
Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,And looking to the stars; they had containedA spirit which with these would find a home,The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned,The Roman globe, for after none sustainedBut yielded back his conquests:—he was moreThan a mere Alexander, and unstainedWith household blood and wine, serenely woreHis sovereign virtues—still we Trajan's name adore.
CXII.
Where is the rock of Triumph, the high placeWhere Rome embraced her heroes? where the steepTarpeian—fittest goal of Treason's race,The promontory whence the traitor's leapCured all ambition? Did the Conquerors heapTheir spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below,A thousand years of silenced factions sleep—The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,And still the eloquent air breathes—burns with Cicero!
CXIII.
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,From the first hour of empire in the budTo that when further worlds to conquer failed;But long before had Freedom's face been veiled,And Anarchy assumed her attributes:Till every lawless soldier who assailedTrod on the trembling Senate's slavish mutes,Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.
CXIV.
Then turn we to our latest tribune's name,From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—Rienzi! last of Romans! While the treeOf freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—The forum's champion, and the people's chief—Her new-born Numa thou, with reign, alas! too brief.
CXV.
Egeria! sweet creation of some heartWhich found no mortal resting-place so fairAs thine ideal breast; whate'er thou artOr wert,—a young Aurora of the air,The nympholepsy of some fond despair;Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,Who found a more than common votary thereToo much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.
CXVI.
The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkledWith thine Elysian water-drops; the faceOf thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,Whose green wild margin now no more eraseArt's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the baseOf the cleft statue, with a gentle leapThe rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep,
CXVII.
Fantastically tangled; the green hillsAre clothed with early blossoms, through the grassThe quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the billsOf summer birds sing welcome as ye pass;Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,Implore the pausing step, and with their dyesDance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.
CXVIII.
Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beatingFor the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meetingWith her most starry canopy, and seatingThyself by thine adorer, what befell?This cave was surely shaped out for the greetingOf an enamoured Goddess, and the cellHaunted by holy Love—the earliest oracle!
CXIX.
And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,Blend a celestial with a human heart;And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,Share with immortal transports? could thine artMake them indeed immortal, and impartThe purity of heaven to earthly joys,Expel the venom and not blunt the dart—The dull satiety which all destroys—And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?
CXX.
Alas! our young affections run to waste,Or water but the desert: whence ariseBut weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,And trees whose gums are poison; such the plantsWhich spring beneath her steps as Passion fliesO'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pantsFor some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.
CXXI.
O Love! no habitant of earth thou art—An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,—A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see,The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,Even with its own desiring phantasy,And to a thought such shape and image given,As haunts the unquenched soul—parched—wearied—wrung—and riven.
CXXII.
Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,And fevers into false creation;—where,Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?Where are the charms and virtues which we dareConceive in boyhood and pursue as men,The unreached Paradise of our despair,Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,And overpowers the page where it would bloom again.
CXXIII.
Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cureIs bitterer still; as charm by charm unwindsWhich robed our idols, and we see too sureNor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind'sIdeal shape of such; yet still it bindsThe fatal spell, and still it draws us on,Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,Seems ever near the prize—wealthiest when most undone.
CXXIV.
We wither from our youth, we gasp away—Sick—sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst,Though to the last, in verge of our decay,Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first—But all too late,—so are we doubly curst.Love, fame, ambition, avarice—'tis the same—Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst—For all are meteors with a different name,And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.
CXXV.
Few—none—find what they love or could have loved:Though accident, blind contact, and the strongNecessity of loving, have removedAntipathies—but to recur, ere long,Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;And Circumstance, that unspiritual godAnd miscreator, makes and helps alongOur coming evils with a crutch-like rod,Whose touch turns hope to dust—the dust we all have trod.
CXXVI.
Our life is a false nature—'tis not inThe harmony of things,—this hard decree,This uneradicable taint of sin,This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches beThe skies which rain their plagues on men like dew—Disease, death, bondage, all the woes we see—And worse, the woes we see not—which throb throughThe immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.
CXXVII.
Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a baseAbandonment of reason to resignOur right of thought—our last and only placeOf refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:Though from our birth the faculty divineIs chained and tortured—cabined, cribbed, confined,And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shineToo brightly on the unprepared mind,The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.
CXXVIII.
Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,Collecting the chief trophies of her line,Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shineAs 'twere its natural torches, for divineShould be the light which streams here, to illumeThis long explored but still exhaustless mineOf contemplation; and the azure gloomOf an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
CXXIX.
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,And shadows forth its glory. There is givenUnto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leantHis hand, but broke his scythe, there is a powerAnd magic in the ruined battlement,For which the palace of the present hourMust yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.
CXXX.
O Time! the beautifier of the dead,Adorner of the ruin, comforterAnd only healer when the heart hath bled—Time! the corrector where our judgments err,The test of truth, love,—sole philosopher,For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,Which never loses though it doth defer—Time, the avenger! unto thee I liftMy hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:
CXXXI.
Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrineAnd temple more divinely desolate,Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,Ruins of years—though few, yet full of fate:If thou hast ever seen me too elate,Hear me not; but if calmly I have borneGood, and reserved my pride against the hateWhich shall not whelm me, let me not have wornThis iron in my soul in vain—shall THEY not mourn?
CXXXII.
And thou, who never yet of human wrongLeft the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!Here, where the ancients paid thee homage long—Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,And round Orestes bade them howl and hissFor that unnatural retribution—just,Had it but been from hands less near—in thisThy former realm, I call thee from the dust!Dost thou not hear my heart?—Awake! thou shalt, and must.
CXXXIII.
It is not that I may not have incurredFor my ancestral faults or mine the woundI bleed withal, and had it been conferredWith a just weapon, it had flowed unbound.But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;To thee I do devote it—THOU shalt takeThe vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found,Which ifIhave not taken for the sake—But let that pass—I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.
CXXXIV.
And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that nowI shrink from what is suffered: let him speakWho hath beheld decline upon my brow,Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;But in this page a record will I seek.Not in the air shall these my words disperse,Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreakThe deep prophetic fulness of this verse,And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!
CXXXV.
That curse shall be forgiveness.—Have I not—Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!—Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?And only not to desperation driven,Because not altogether of such clayAs rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
CXXXVI.
From mighty wrongs to petty perfidyHave I not seen what human things could do?From the loud roar of foaming calumnyTo the small whisper of the as paltry fewAnd subtler venom of the reptile crew,The Janus glance of whose significant eye,Learning to lie with silence, would SEEM true,And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.
CXXXVII.
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,And my frame perish even in conquering pain,But there is that within me which shall tireTorture and Time, and breathe when I expire:Something unearthly, which they deem not of,Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,Shall on their softened spirits sink, and moveIn hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.
CXXXVIII.
The seal is set.—Now welcome, thou dread PowerNameless, yet thus omnipotent, which hereWalk'st in the shadow of the midnight hourWith a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear:Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rearTheir ivy mantles, and the solemn sceneDerives from thee a sense so deep and clearThat we become a part of what has been,And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.
CXXXIX.
And here the buzz of eager nations ran,In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man.And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but becauseSuch were the bloody circus' genial laws,And the imperial pleasure.—Wherefore not?What matters where we fall to fill the mawsOf worms—on battle-plains or listed spot?Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.
CXL.
I see before me the Gladiator lie:He leans upon his hand—his manly browConsents to death, but conquers agony,And his drooped head sinks gradually low—And through his side the last drops, ebbing slowFrom the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,Like the first of a thunder-shower; and nowThe arena swims around him: he is gone,Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
CXLI.
He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyesWere with his heart, and that was far away;He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,THERE were his young barbarians all at play,THERE was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,Butchered to make a Roman holiday—All this rushed with his blood—Shall he expire,And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!
CXLII.
But here, where murder breathed her bloody steam;And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,And roared or murmured like a mountain-streamDashing or winding as its torrent strays;Here, where the Roman million's blame or praiseWas death or life, the playthings of a crowd,My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint raysOn the arena void—seats crushed, walls bowed,And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.
CXLIII.
A ruin—yet what ruin! from its massWalls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?Alas! developed, opens the decay,When the colossal fabric's form is neared:It will not bear the brightness of the day,Which streams too much on all, years, man, have reft away.
CXLIV.
But when the rising moon begins to climbIts topmost arch, and gently pauses there;When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,And the low night-breeze waves along the air,The garland-forest, which the grey walls wear,Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head;When the light shines serene, but doth not glare,Then in this magic circle raise the dead:Heroes have trod this spot—'tis on their dust ye tread.
CXLV.
'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;And when Rome falls—the World.' From our own landThus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wallIn Saxon times, which we are wont to callAncient; and these three mortal things are stillOn their foundations, and unaltered all;Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,The World, the same wide den—of thieves, or what ye will.
CXLVI.
Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime—Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,From Jove to Jesus—spared and blest by time;Looking tranquillity, while falls or nodsArch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plodsHis way through thorns to ashes—glorious dome!Shalt thou not last?—Time's scythe and tyrants' rodsShiver upon thee—sanctuary and homeOf art and piety—Pantheon!—pride of Rome!
CXLVII.
Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreadsA holiness appealing to all hearts—To art a model; and to him who treadsRome for the sake of ages, Glory shedsHer light through thy sole aperture; to thoseWho worship, here are altars for their beads;And they who feel for genius may reposeTheir eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close.
CXLVIII.
There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear lightWhat do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight—Two insulated phantoms of the brain:It is not so: I see them full and plain—An old man, and a female young and fair,Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose veinThe blood is nectar:—but what doth she there,With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?
CXLIX.
Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,Where ON the heart and FROM the heart we tookOur first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,Blest into mother, in the innocent look,Or even the piping cry of lips that brookNo pain and small suspense, a joy perceivesMan knows not, when from out its cradled nookShe sees her little bud put forth its leaves—What may the fruit be yet?—I know not—Cain was Eve's.
CL.
But here youth offers to old age the food,The milk of his own gift:—it is her sireTo whom she renders back the debt of bloodBorn with her birth. No; he shall not expireWhile in those warm and lovely veins the fireOf health and holy feeling can provideGreat Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higherThan Egypt's river:—from that gentle sideDrink, drink and live, old man! heaven's realm holds no such tide.
CLI.
The starry fable of the milky wayHas not thy story's purity; it isA constellation of a sweeter ray,And sacred Nature triumphs more in thisReverse of her decree, than in the abyssWhere sparkle distant worlds:—Oh, holiest nurse!No drop of that clear stream its way shall missTo thy sire's heart, replenishing its sourceWith life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.
CLII.
Turn to the mole which Hadrian reared on high,Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,Colossal copyist of deformity,Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile'sEnormous model, doomed the artist's toilsTo build for giants, and for his vain earth,His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: How smilesThe gazer's eye with philosophic mirth,To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!
CLIII.
But lo! the dome—the vast and wondrous dome,To which Diana's marvel was a cell—Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb!I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle—Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwellThe hyaena and the jackal in their shade;I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swellTheir glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyedIts sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;
CLIV.
But thou, of temples old, or altars new,Standest alone—with nothing like to thee—Worthiest of God, the holy and the true,Since Zion's desolation, when that heForsook his former city, what could be,Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisledIn this eternal ark of worship undefiled.
CLV.
Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;And why? it is not lessened; but thy mind,Expanded by the genius of the spot,Has grown colossal, and can only findA fit abode wherein appear enshrinedThy hopes of immortality; and thouShalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,See thy God face to face, as thou dost nowHis Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
CLVI.
Thou movest—but increasing with th' advance,Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,Deceived by its gigantic elegance;Vastness which grows—but grows to harmonise—All musical in its immensities;Rich marbles—richer painting—shrines where flameThe lamps of gold—and haughty dome which viesIn air with Earth's chief structures, though their frameSits on the firm-set ground—and this the clouds must claim.
CLVII.
Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must breakTo separate contemplation, the great whole;And as the ocean many bays will make,That ask the eye—so here condense thy soulTo more immediate objects, and controlThy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heartIts eloquent proportions, and unrollIn mighty graduations, part by part,The glory which at once upon thee did not dart.
CLVIII.
Not by its fault—but thine: Our outward senseIs but of gradual grasp—and as it isThat what we have of feeling most intenseOutstrips our faint expression; e'en so thisOutshining and o'erwhelming edificeFools our fond gaze, and greatest of the greatDefies at first our nature's littleness,Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilateOur spirits to the size of that they contemplate.
CLIX.