LXXVI. Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. LXXVII. 1 Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, 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. 1 [Lord Byron's prepossession against Horace is not without a parallel. It was not till released from the duty of reading Virgil as a task, that Gray could feel himself capable of enjoying the beauties of that poet. - MOORE.] LXXIX. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, 1 Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, LXXX. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, I am ["I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. delighted with Rome. As a whole-ancient and modern, -it beats Greece, Constantinople, every thing- at least that I have ever seen. But I can't describe, because my first impressions are always strong and confused, and my memory selects and reduces them to order, like distance in the landscape, and blends them better, although they may be less distinct. have been on horse back most of the day, all days since my arrival. I have been to Albano, its lakes, and to the top of the Alban Mount, and to Frescati, Aricia, &c. As for the Coliseum, Pantheon, St. Peter's, the Vatican, Palatine, &c. &c.— they are quite inconceivable, and must be seen."- Byron Letters, May, 1817.] 2 For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult "Historical Illustrations," p. 46. 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 cry "Eureka!" it is clearWhen but some false mirage of ruin rises near. LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas! The trebly hundred triumphs 1! and the day Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see [free! That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was LXXXIII. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown 1 Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs. He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers. LXXXIV. The dictatorial wreath 1,-couldst thou divine By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid? 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 -immortal rebel! See What crimes it costs to be a moment free And famous through all ages! but beneath His day of double victory and death [breath. 2 Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his 1 Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atonement of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul.-(" Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idées de la façon dont je vous vois agir. Je croyais que vous aviez de l'ambition, mais aucune amour pour la gloire je voyais bien que votre âme était haute; mais je ne soupçonnais pas qu'elle fut grande."-Dialogues de Sylla et d'Eucrate.) 2 On the 3d of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. LXXXVI. The third of the same moon whose former course Our souls to compass through each arduous way, Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom! LXXXVII. And thou, dread statue! yet existent in1 An offering to thine altar from the queen LXXXVIII. And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! 2 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? 1,2 See Appendix, "Historical Notes," Nos. XXIV. XXV. |