ALARIC THE VISIGOTH. When I am dead, no pageant train For I will die as I did live, Nor take the boon I cannot give. Ye shall not raise a marble bust Upon the spot where I repose; Ye shall not pile with servile toil, Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "The Scourge of God." But ye the mountain stream shall turn, My gold and silver ye shall fling Back to the clods that gave them birth— The captured crowns of many a king, But when beneath the mountain tide Ye've laid your monarch down to rot, Ye shall not rear upon its side Pillar or mound to mark the spot: For long enough the earth has shook Beneath the terrors of my look ; And now that I have run my race, The astonished realms shall rest a space. My course was like a river deep, And from the Northern hills I burst, Across the world in wrath to sweep; And where I went the spot was curst: No blade of grass again was seen Where Alaric and his hosts had been. See how their haughty barriers fail Not for myself did I ascend. In judgment my triumphal car; With iron hand that scourge I reared And Vengeance sat upon the helm. Across the everlasting Alp I poured the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shrieked for help In vain within their seven-hilled towers. I quenched in blood the brightest gem That glittered in their diadem; |