Rth, For Never Shall We See That 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 Subdue Thy Country'S Foes Ere Thou Wouldst Pause To Feel The Wrath Of Thy Own Wrongs, Or Reap The Due Of Hoarded Vengeance Till Thine Eagles Flew O'Er Prostrate Asia; - Thou, Who With Thy Frown Annihilated Senates - Roman, Too, With All Thy Vices, For Thou Didst Lay Down With An Atoning Smile A More Than Earthly Crown - Lxxxiv. The Dictatorial Wreath, - Couldst Thou Divine To What Would One Day Dwindle That Which Made Thee More Than Mortal? And That So Supine By Aught Than Romans Rome Should Thus Be Laid? She Who Was Named Eternal, And Arrayed Her Warriors But To Conquer - She Who Veiled Earth With Her Haughty Shadow, And Displayed Until 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! - He Too Swept Off Senates While He Hewed The Throne Down To A Block - Immortal Rebel! See What Crimes It Costs To Be A Moment Free And Famous Through All Ages! But Beneath His Fate The Moral Lurks Of Destiny; His Day Of Double Victory And Death Beheld Him Win Two Realms, And, Happier, Yield His Breath. Lxxxvi. The Third Of The Same Moon Whose Former Course Had All But Crowned Him, On The Self-Same Day Deposed 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 Consume Our 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 In The 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 Queen Of Gods And Men, Great Nemesis! Did He Die, And Thou, Too, Perish, Pompey? Have Ye Been Victors Of Countless Kings, Or Puppets Of A Scene? Lxxxviii. And Thou, The Thunder-Stricken Nurse Of Rome! She-Wolf! Whose Brazen-Imaged Dugs Impart The Milk Of Conquest Yet Within The Dome Where, 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 Yet Guard 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 Reared Cities From Out Their Sepulchres: Men Bled In 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 Kind Of Bastard Caesar, Following Him Of Old With Steps Unequal; For The Roman'S Mind Was Modelled In A Less Terrestrial Mould, With Passions Fiercer, Yet A Judgment Cold, And An Immortal Instinct Which Redeemed The Frailties Of A Heart So Soft, Yet Bold. Alcides With The Distaff Now He Seemed At Cleopatra'S Feet, And Now Himself He Beamed. Xci. And Came, And Saw, And Conquered. But The Man Who 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 Be A Listener To Itself, Was Strangely Framed; With But One Weakest Weakness - Vanity: Coquettish In Ambition, Still He Aimed At What? Can He Avouch, Or Answer What He Claimed? Xcii. And Would Be All Or Nothing - Nor Could Wait For The Sure Grave To Level Him; Few Years Had Fixed Him With The Caesars In His Fate, On Whom We Tread: For This The Conqueror Rears The Arch Of Triumph! And For This The Tears And Blood Of Earth Flow On As They Have Flowed, An Universal Deluge, Which Appears Without 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 Veil Mantles The Earth With Darkness, Until Right And Wrong Are Accidents, And Men Grow Pale Lest 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 Rage To The New Race Of Inborn Slaves, Who Wage War For Their Chains, And Rather Than Be Free, Bleed Gladiator-Like, And Still Engage Within The Same Arena Where They See Their Fellows Fall Before, Like Leaves Of The Same Tree. Xcv. I Speak Not Of Men'S Creeds - They Rest Between Man 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 Grown The 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 Child Such As Columbia Saw Arise When She Sprung Forth A Pallas, Armed And Undefiled? Or Must Such Minds Be Nourished In The Wild, Deep In The Unpruned Forest, Midst The Roar Of Cataracts, Where Nursing Nature Smiled On Infant Washington? Has Earth No More Such Seeds Within Her Breast, Or Europe No Such Shore? Xcvii. But France Got Drunk With Blood To Vomit Crime, And Fatal Have Her Saturnalia Been To Freedom'S Cause, In Every Age And Clime; Because The Deadly Days Which We Have Seen, And Vile Ambition, That Built Up Between Man And His Hopes An Adamantine Wall, And The Base Pageant Last Upon The Scene, Are Grown The Pretext For The Eternal Thrall Which 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 Find Sown 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 Wave The Green Leaves Over All By Time O'Erthrown: What Was This Tower Of Strength? Within Its Cave What 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 Not So 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 They Who Love The Lords Of Others? Such Have Been Even 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 Lean To The Soft Side Of The Heart, Or Wisely Bar Love From Amongst Her Griefs? - For Such The Affections Are. Cii. Perchance She Died In Youth: It May Be, Bowed With Woes Far Heavier Than The Ponderous Tomb That Weighed Upon Her Gentle Dust, A Cloud Might Gather O'Er Her Beauty, And A Gloom In Her Dark Eye, Prophetic Of The Doom Heaven Gives Its Favourites - Early Death; Yet Shed A Sunset Charm Around Her, And Illume With 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 Grey On Her Long Tresses, Which Might Yet Recall, It May Be, Still A Something Of The Day When They Were Braided, And Her Proud Array And Lovely Form Were Envied, Praised, And Eyed By 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 Thee It Seems As If I Had Thine Inmate Known, Thou Tomb! And Other Days Come Back On Me With Recollected Music, Though The Tone Is Changed And Solemn, Like The Cloudy Groan Of Dying Thunder On The Distant Wind; Yet Could I Seat Me By This Ivied Stone Till 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 More To Battle With The Ocean And The Shocks Of The Loud Breakers, And The Ceaseless Roar Which Rushes On The Solitary Shore Where All Lies Foundered That Was Ever Dear: But Could I Gather From The Wave-Worn Store Enough 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 Harmony Shall Henceforth Be My Music, And The Night The Sound Shall Temper With The Owlet'S Cry, As I Now Hear Them, In The Fading Light Dim 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 Shrine What Are Our Petty Griefs? - Let Me Not Number Mine. Cvii. Cypress And Ivy, Weed And Wallflower Grown Matted And Massed Together, Hillocks Heaped On What Were Chambers, Arch Crushed, Column Strown In Fragments, Choked-Up Vaults, And Frescoes Steeped In Subterranean Damps, Where The Owl Peeped, Deeming It Midnight: - Temples, Baths, Or Halls? Pronounce Who Can; For All That Learning Reaped From 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 Amassed All 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 Here There 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 Plan The Pyramid Of Empires Pinnacled, Of Glory'S Gewgaws Shining In The Van Till 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 Climb To 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 Contained A 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 Sustained But Yielded Back His Conquests: - He Was More Than A Mere Alexander, And Unstained With Household Blood And Wine, Serenely Wore His Sovereign Virtues - Still We Trajan'S Name Adore. Cxii. Where Is The Rock Of Triumph, The High Place Where Rome Embraced Her Heroes? Where The Steep Tarpeian - Fittest Goal Of Treason'S Race, The Promontory Whence The Traitor'S Leap Cured All Ambition? Did The Conquerors Heap Their 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 Bud To 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 Assailed Trod 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 Tree Of 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 Heart Which Found No Mortal Resting-Place So Fair As Thine Ideal Breast; Whate'Er Thou Art Or 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 There Too Much Adoring; Whatsoe'Er Thy Birth, Thou Wert A Beautiful Thought, And Softly Bodied Forth. Cxvi. The Mosses Of Thy Fountain Still Are Sprinkled With Thine Elysian Water-Drops; The Face Of Thy Cave-Guarded Spring, With Years Unwrinkled, Reflects The Meek-Eyed Genius Of The Place, Whose Green Wild Margin Now No More Erase Art'S Works; Nor Must The Delicate Waters Sleep, Prisoned In Marble, Bubbling From The Base Of The Cleft Statue, With A Gentle Leap The Rill Runs O'Er, And Round, Fern, Flowers, And Ivy Creep, Cxvii. Fantastically Tangled; The Green Hills Are Clothed With Early Blossoms, Through The Grass The Quick-Eyed Lizard Rustles, And The Bills Of Summer Birds Sing Welcome As Ye Pass; Flowers Fresh In Hue, And Many In Their Class, Implore The Pausing Step, And With Their Dyes Dance 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 Beating For The Far Footsteps Of Thy Mortal Lover; The Purple Midnight Veiled That Mystic Meeting With Her Most Starry Canopy, And Seating Thyself By Thine Adorer, What Befell? This Cave Was Surely Shaped Out For The Greeting Of An Enamoured Goddess, And The Cell Haunted 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 Art Make Them Indeed Immortal, And Impart The 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 Arise But 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 Plants Which Spring Beneath Her Steps As Passion Flies O'Er The World'S Wilderness, And Vainly Pants For 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 Dare Conceive 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 Cure Is Bitterer Still; As Charm By Charm Unwinds Which Robed Our Idols, And We See Too Sure Nor Worth Nor Beauty Dwells From Out The Mind'S Ideal Shape Of Such; Yet Still It Binds The 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 Strong Necessity Of Loving, Have Removed Antipathies - But To Recur, Ere Long, Envenomed With Irrevocable Wrong; And Circumstance, That Unspiritual God And Miscreator, Makes And Helps Along Our 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 In The 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 Be The 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 Through The Immedicable Soul, With Heart-Aches Ever New. Cxxvii. Yet Let Us Ponder Boldly - 'Tis A Base Abandonment Of Reason To Resign Our Right Of Thought - Our Last And Only Place Of Refuge; This, At Least, Shall Still Be Mine: Though From Our Birth The Faculty Divine Is Chained And Tortured - Cabined, Cribbed, Confined, And Bred In Darkness, Lest The Truth Should Shine Too 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 Shine As 'Twere Its Natural Torches, For Divine Should Be The Light Which Streams Here, To Illume This Long Explored But Still Exhaustless Mine Of Contemplation; And The Azure Gloom Of 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 Given Unto The Things Of Earth, Which Time Hath Bent, A Spirit'S Feeling, And Where He Hath Leant His Hand, But Broke His Scythe, There Is A Power And Magic In The Ruined Battlement, For Which The Palace Of The Present Hour Must Yield Its Pomp, And Wait Till Ages Are Its Dower. Cxxx. O Time! The Beautifier Of The Dead, Adorner Of The Ruin, Comforter And 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 Lift My Hands, And Eyes, And Heart, And Crave Of Thee A Gift: Cxxxi. Amidst This Wreck, Where Thou Hast Made A Shrine And 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 Borne Good, And Reserved My Pride Against The Hate Which Shall Not Whelm Me, Let Me Not Have Worn This Iron In My Soul In Vain - Shall They Not Mourn? Cxxxii. And Thou, Who Never Yet Of Human Wrong Left 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 Hiss For That Unnatural Retribution - Just, Had It But Been From Hands Less Near - In This Thy 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 Incurred For My Ancestral Faults Or Mine The Wound I Bleed Withal, And Had It Been Conferred With 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 Take The Vengeance, Which Shall Yet Be Sought And Found, Which If _I_ Have 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 Now I Shrink From What Is Suffered: Let Him Speak Who 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 Wreak The 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 Clay As Rots Into The Souls Of Those Whom I Survey. Cxxxvi. From Mighty Wrongs To Petty Perfidy Have I Not Seen What Human Things Could Do? From The Loud Roar Of Foaming Calumny To The Small Whisper Of The As Paltry Few And 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 Tire Torture 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 Move In Hearts All Rocky Now The Late Remorse Of Love. Cxxxviii. The Seal Is Set. - Now Welcome, Thou Dread Power Nameless, Yet Thus Omnipotent, Which Here Walk'St In The Shadow Of The Midnight Hour With A Deep Awe, Yet All Distinct From Fear: Thy Haunts Are Ever Where The Dead Walls Rear Their Ivy Mantles, And The Solemn Scene Derives From Thee A Sense So Deep And Clear That 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 Because Such Were The Bloody Circus' Genial Laws, And The Imperial Pleasure. - Wherefore Not? What Matters Where We Fall To Fill The Maws Of 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 Brow Consents To Death, But Conquers Agony, And His Drooped Head Sinks Gradually Low - And Through His Side The Last Drops, Ebbing Slow From The Red Gash, Fall Heavy, One By One, Like The First Of A Thunder-Shower; And Now The 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 Eyes Were 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-Stream Dashing Or Winding As Its Torrent Strays; Here, Where The Roman Million'S Blame Or Praise Was Death Or Life, The Playthings Of A Crowd, My Voice Sounds Much - And Fall The Stars' Faint Rays On The Arena Void - Seats Crushed, Walls Bowed, And Galleries, Where My Steps Seem Echoes Strangely Loud. Cxliii. A Ruin - Yet What Ruin! From Its Mass Walls, 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 Climb Its 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 Land Thus Spake The Pilgrims O'Er This Mighty Wall In Saxon Times, Which We Are Wont To Call Ancient; And These Three Mortal Things Are Still On 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 Nods Arch, Empire, Each Thing Round Thee, And Man Plods His Way Through Thorns To Ashes - Glorious Dome! Shalt Thou Not Last? - Time'S Scythe And Tyrants' Rods Shiver Upon Thee - Sanctuary And Home Of Art And Piety - Pantheon! - Pride Of Rome! Cxlvii. Relic Of Nobler Days, And Noblest Arts! Despoiled Yet Perfect, With Thy Circle Spreads A Holiness Appealing To All Hearts - To Art A Model; And To Him Who Treads Rome For The Sake Of Ages, Glory Sheds Her Light Through Thy Sole Aperture; To Those Who Worship, Here Are Altars For Their Beads; And They Who Feel For Genius May Repose Their Eyes On Honoured Forms, Whose Busts Around Them Close. Cxlviii. There Is A Dungeon, In Whose Dim Drear Light What 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 Vein The 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 Took Our First And Sweetest Nurture, When The Wife, Blest Into Mother, In The Innocent Look, Or Even The Piping Cry Of Lips That Brook No Pain And Small Suspense, A Joy Perceives Man Knows Not, When From Out Its Cradled Nook She 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 Sire To Whom She Renders Back The Debt Of Blood Born With Her Birth. No; He Shall Not Expire While In Those Warm And Lovely Veins The Fire Of Health And Holy Feeling Can Provide Great Nature'S Nile, Whose Deep Stream Rises Higher Than Egypt'S River: - From That Gentle Side Drink, Drink And Live, Old Man! Heaven'S Realm Holds No Such Tide. Cli. The Starry Fable Of The Milky Way Has Not Thy Story'S Purity; It Is A Constellation Of A Sweeter Ray, And Sacred Nature Triumphs More In This Reverse Of Her Decree, Than In The Abyss Where Sparkle Distant Worlds: - Oh, Holiest Nurse! No Drop Of That Clear Stream Its Way Shall Miss To Thy Sire'S Heart, Replenishing Its Source With 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'S Enormous Model, Doomed The Artist'S Toils To Build For Giants, And For His Vain Earth, His Shrunken Ashes, Raise This Dome: How Smiles The 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 Dwell The Hyaena And The Jackal In Their Shade; I Have Beheld Sophia'S Bright Roofs Swell Their Glittering Mass I' The Sun, And Have Surveyed Its 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 He Forsook 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 Aisled In 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 Find A Fit Abode Wherein Appear Enshrined Thy Hopes Of Immortality; And Thou Shalt One Day, If Found Worthy, So Defined, See Thy God Face To Face, As Thou Dost Now His 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 Flame The Lamps Of Gold - And Haughty Dome Which Vies In Air With Earth'S Chief Structures, Though Their Frame Sits On The Firm-Set Ground - And This The Clouds Must Claim. Clvii. Thou Seest Not All; But Piecemeal Thou Must Break To Separate Contemplation, The Great Whole; And As The Ocean Many Bays Will Make, That Ask The Eye - So Here Condense Thy Soul To More Immediate Objects, And Control Thy Thoughts Until Thy Mind Hath Got By Heart Its Eloquent Proportions, And Unroll In Mighty Graduations, Part By Part, The Glory Which At Once Upon Thee Did Not Dart. Clviii. Not By Its Fault - But Thine: Our Outward Sense Is But Of Gradual Grasp - And As It Is That What We Have Of Feeling Most Intense Outstrips Our Faint Expression; E'En So This Outshining And O'Erwhelming Edifice Fools Our Fond Gaze, And Greatest Of The Great Defies At First Our Nature'S Littleness, Till, Growing With Its Growth, We Thus Dilate Our Spirits To The Size Of That They Contemplate. Clix. Then Pause And Be Enlightened; There Is More In Such A Survey Than The Sating Gaze Of Wonder Pleased, Or Awe Which Would Adore The Worship Of The Place, Or The Mere Praise Of Art And Its Great Masters, Who Could Raise What Former Time, Nor Skill, Nor Thought Could Plan; The Fountain Of Sublimity Displays Its Depth, And Thence May Draw The Mind Of Man Its Golden Sands, And Learn What Great Conceptions Can. Clx. Or, Turning To The Vatican, Go See Laocoon'S Torture Dignifying Pain - A Father'S Love And Mortal'S Agony With An Immortal'S Patience Blending: - Vain The Struggle; Vain, Against The Coiling Strain And Gripe, And Deepening Of The Dragon'S Grasp, The Old Man'S Clench; The Long Envenomed Chain Rivets The Living Links, - The Enormous Asp Enforces Pang On Pang, And Stifles Gasp On Gasp. Clxi. Or View The Lord Of The Unerring Bow, The God Of Life, And Poesy, And Light - The Sun In Human Limbs Arrayed, And Brow All Radiant From His Triumph In The Fight; The Shaft Hath Just Been Shot - The Arrow Bright With An Immortal'S Vengeance; In His Eye And Nostril Beautiful Disdain, And Might And Majesty, Flash Their Full Lightnings By, Developing In That One Glance The Deity. Clxii. But In His Delicate Form - A Dream Of Love, Shaped By Some Solitary Nymph, Whose Breast Longed For A Deathless Lover From Above, And Maddened In That Vision - Are Expressed All That Ideal Beauty Ever Blessed The Mind Within Its Most Unearthly Mood, When Each Conception Was A Heavenly Guest - A Ray Of Immortality - And Stood Starlike, Around, Until They Gathered To A God? Clxiii. And If It Be Prometheus Stole From Heaven The Fire Which We