nie me, nor Bard prescribe his art, Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart, Yet fare thee well-upon Soracte's ridge we part.

LXXVIII.

Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.

What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'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, 50
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her wither'd hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ;51
The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of 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 dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride;

She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,

Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide
Temple 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?

U

LXXXI.

The double night of ages, and of her,

Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap All round us; we but feel our way to err: The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap Our hands, and cry “ Eureka!” it is clearWhen but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

LXXXIL

Alas! the lofty city! and alas!

The trebly hundred triumphs ! 52 and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page!-but these shall be
Her resurrection; all beside-decay.

Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see

That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!

LXXXIII.

Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd 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—