LXXVI. Aught that recals the daily drug which turn'd My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, 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 Socrate's ridge we part. LXXVIII. Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. LXXIX. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, 14 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? 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 66 cry Eureka!" it is clear When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas!" The trebly hundred triumphs! 42 and the day 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,43 With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown. LXXXIV. The dictatorial wreath, couldst thou divine Her rushing wings - Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd! LXXXV. Sylla was first of victors; but our own His day of double victory and death Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. |