Its steady dyes, while all around is torn Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn : Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Apennine, But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear LXXIV. H Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, For still they soar'd unutterably high: I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye; Athos, Olympus, Ætna, Atlas, made These hills seem things of lesser dignity, Alf, save the lone Soracte's height, display'd Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid LXXV. For our remembrance, and from out the plain The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, (40) In my repugnant youth with pleasure to record LXXVI. Aught that recals the daily drug which turn'd My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught 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 Soracte's ridge we part. LXXVIII. Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye! Whose agonies are evils of a day- 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, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her dis tress. 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 monarch's 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: VOL. I.-0 Our hands, and 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 was free! LXXXIII. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, (43) Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdue With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down LXXXIV. The dictatorial wreath,-couldst thou divine 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 Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne 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. (44) 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 (45) |