1200 | 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 | |
1205 | 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! | |
1210 | Have I not suffer’d things to be forgiven? |
Have I not had my brain sear’d, my heart riven, | |
Hopes sapp’d, name blighted, Life’s life lied away? | |
And only not to desperation driven, | |
Because not altogether of such clay | |
1215 | 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 | |
1220 | And subtler venom of the reptile crew, |
The Janus glance of whose significant eye, | |
Learning to lie with silence, would | |
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, | |
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. | |
CXXXVII | |
1225 | 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; | |
1230 | Something unearthly, which they deem not of, |
Like the remember’d tone of a mute lyre, | |
Shall on their soften’d spirits sink, and move | |
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. | |
CXXXVIII | |
The seal is set. – Now welcome, thou dread power! | |
1235 | 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 | |
1240 | 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 murmur’d pity, or loud-roar’d applause, | |
1245 | As man was slaughter’d by his fellow man. |
And wherefore slaughter’d? 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 | |
1250 | 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, | |
1255 | And his droop’d 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, | |
1260 | Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail’d the wretch who won. |
CXLI | |
He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes | |
Were with his heart, and that was far away: | |
He reck’d not of the life he lost nor prize, | |
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, | |
1265 | There |
There | |
Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday | |
All this rush’d with his blood – Shall he expire | |
And unavenged? – Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! | |
CXLII | |
1270 | But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; |
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, | |
And roar’d or murmur’d like a mountain stream | |
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; | |
Here, where the Roman millions’ blame or praise | |
1275 | Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, |
My voice sounds much – and fall the stars’ faint rays | |
On the arena void – seats crush’d – walls bow’d – | |
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. | |
CXLIII | |
A ruin – yet what ruin! from its mass | |
1280 | Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear’d; |
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, | |
And marvel where the spoil could have appear’d. | |
Hath it indeed been plunder’d, or but clear’d? | |
Alas! developed, opens the decay, | |
1285 | When the colossal fabric’s form is near’d: |
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 topmast arch, and gently pauses there; | |
1290 | 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, | |
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar’s head; | |
When the light shines serene but doth not glare, | |
1295 | 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 | |
1300 | 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 unalter’d all; | |
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption’s skill, | |
1305 | 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 | |
1310 | 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 | |
1315 | Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts! |
Despoil’d 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 | |
1320 | 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 honour’d forms, whose busts around them close. | |
CXLVIII | |
There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light | |
1325 | What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again! |
Two forms are slowly shadow’d 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, | |
1330 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 | |
1335 | 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 | |
1340 | 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 |