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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 lie: (59)
He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
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,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him-he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who

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-(60)

[won.

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 stream
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, (61)
My voice sounds much-and fall the stars' faint rays
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

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,
Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head: (62)
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.
CXLV.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; (63)
"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

Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,

From Jove to Jesus-spared and blest by time; (64)
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods
His way through thorns to ashes-glorious doom!
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrant's rods
Shiver upon thee-sanctuary and home

Of art and piety-Pantheon !-pride of Rome!

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

CXLVIII.

[close. (65)

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light (66)

What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!
Two forms are slowly shadowed 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,
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 on the heart and from the heart we took
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
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
Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
Of health and holy feeling can provide

Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher
Than Egypt's river :-from that gentle side

Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no

such tide.

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Published by John Duncombe, 19 Little Queen Street, Holbor

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