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 wrapp'd 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.

LXXXII.

Alas! the lofty city! and alas!

The trebly hundred triumphs! 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 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 hew'd the throne

Down to a block-immortal rebel! See

What crimes it costs 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.
And show'd 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, dread statue, yet existent in
The austerest form of naked majesty,

Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din,
At thy bathed 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! 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?

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,
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 framed;
With but one weakest weakness-vanity,
Coquettish in ambition-still he aim'd—

At what? can he avouch—or answer what he claim'd?

XCII.

And would be all or nothing-nor could wait

For the sure grave to level him; few

years

Had fix'd him with the Cæsars in his fate,

On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears

The arch of triumph! and for this the tears
And blood of earth flow on as they have flow'd,
A universal deluge, which appears

Without an ark for wretched man's abode,
And ebbs but to reflow!-Renew thy rainbow, God!