LXXII.

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, (35),
Like Hope upon death-bed, and, unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.
LXXXIII.

Once more upon the woody Appenine,

The infant Alps, which-had I not before
Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar (36)
The thundering lauwine-might be worshipp'd more;
But I have seen the soaring Junfrau roar

Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar
Glaciers of bleak Mont-Blanc both far and near,
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,
LXXIV.

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly
Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame,
For still they soared unutterably high:
I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
Athos, Olympus, Etna, Atlas, made
These hills seem things of lesser dignity,"
All, save the lone Soracte's height displayed
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid.
LXXV.

For our remembrance, and from out the plain"
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain
May he, who will, his recollections rake
And quote in classic raptures, and awake
The hill with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,

The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word, (37) In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record.

LXXVI.

Aught that recals the daily drudge which turn'd'
My sickening memory; and though Time hath taught
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd,
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought
By the impatience of my early thought,
That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought
If free to choose, I cannot now restore

Its 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 curse
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
To comprehend, but never love thy verse,
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse
Our little life, 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 controul
In their shut breast 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,

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woes;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;

The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now (38)
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 will 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, have 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 "Euraka!" it is clear-
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
LXXXII.

Alas! the lofty city! and alas!

The trebly hundred triumph! (39) 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 pictur'd page!-but these shall be
Her resurrection; all besides-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 (40)
Triumphant Sylla! Thou who didst subdue
Thy country's foes ere thou would 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 array'd

Her warriors but to conquer she who veil'd
Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd
Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd,

Her rushing wings--Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd!

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 time it cost 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 crown'd him, on the selfsame day.
Deposed him gently from his throne of force,
And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. (41)
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, too, dread statue! yet existent in (42)

The austerest form of naked majesty

Thou who beheldst, 'mid the assassins' din,
At thy bath'd base the bloody Cæsar 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! (43)
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 suck'd from thy wild teat,
Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's etherial dart,

And thy limbs black 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 rear'd
Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled
In imitation of the things they fear'd,

And fought and conquer'd, and the same course steer'd
At apish distance; but as yet none have,

Nor could, the same supremacy have near'd,
Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,
But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave-

XC.

The fool of false dominion-and a kind

Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old
With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould, (44)
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,
And an immortal instinct which redeem'd
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold,
Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd
At Cleopatra's feet,-and now himself he beam'd,

XCI.

And came and saw-and conquer'd! But the man'
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,
Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van,
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,
With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be
A listener to itself, was strangely fram'd;
With but one weakest weakness-vanity,
Coquettish in ambition-still he aim'd-

And what? can he avouch- -or answer what he claim'd?

M