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[481]—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 gray
 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?[482]
 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[od]
 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.[oe]

CVI.

Then let the Winds howl on! their harmony
 Shall henceforth be my music, and the Night
 The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry,
 As I now hear them, in the fading light
 Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,
 Answering each other on the Palatine,
 With their large eyes, all glistening gray 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[483]
 Matted and massed together—hillocks heaped
 On what were chambers—arch crushed, column strown
 In fragments—choked up vaults, and frescos steeped
 In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,[of]
 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.[484]

CVIII.

There is the moral of all human tales;[485]
 '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![og]
 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[oh]
 Till the Sun's rays with added flame were filled!
 Where are its golden roofs?[486] where those who dared to build?

CX.

Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
 Thou nameless column[487] with the buried base!
 What are the laurels of the Cæsar'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[oi]
 Scoffing; and apostolic statues[488] 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[489] name adore.

CXII.

Where is the rock of Triumph,[490] 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[oj]
 Cured all ambition?[491] 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![ok][492]

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 her 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![493] 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 [27.H.]
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[494] of some fond despair—[ol]
 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[495] 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.[496]

CXVIII.

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,[497]
 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[498]—and seating
 Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?
 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;[om]
 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.

Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art—[on]
 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;[499]
 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[500] the pencil and the pen,
 And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

CXXIII.

Who loves, raves[501]—'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,[oo]
 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,[502]
 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,[503] with heart-aches ever new.

CXXVII.

Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a base
 Abandonment of reason[504] 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,[505] lest the Truth should shine
 Too brightly on the unpreparéd mind,
 The beam pours in—for Time and Skill will couch the blind.

CXXVIII.

Arches on arches![506] as it were that Rome,
 Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
 Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
 Her Coliseum stands;[507] 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.

Oh, Time! the Beautifier of the dead,
 Adorner of the ruin[508]—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![509] [28.H.]
Here, where the ancient 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[op]
 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[oq]
 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.[or]

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[510] 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 upon 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[511] lie:
 He leans upon his hand—his manly brow[os]
 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,[ot]
 Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now[ou]
 The arena swims around him—he is gone,[ov]
 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—[ow] [29.H.]
 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—[ox] [30.H.]
My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint rays[oy]
 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,[oz]
 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 gray walls wear,[pa]
 Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head—[512]
 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.[pb]

CXLV.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand:[513]
 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—[514]
 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![pc]

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.[515]

CXLVIII.