Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear:
But could I gather from the wave-worn store
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer?
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what
is here.
CVI.

Then let the winds howl on! their harmony
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night
The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry,
As I now hear them, in the fading light
Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,
Answering each other on the Palatine,

With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright,

And sailing pinions.-Upon such a shrine What are our petty griefs ?-let me not number mine.

A spirit which with these would find a home, The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd, But yielded back his conquests: he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd With household blood and wine, serenely wore His sovereign virtues-still we Trajan's name adore. CXII.

Where is the rock of Triumph, the high piace Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the steep

Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race, The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleepThe Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes-burns with Cicero !

CXXX.

Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter

And only healer when the heart hath bled-
Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love,-sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it doth defer-
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift

My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:

CXXXI.

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine

And temple more divinely desolate,
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate :-
If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn
This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn?
CXXXII.

And thou, who never yet of human wrong
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! 36
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long-
Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
For that unnatural retribution-just,

Had it but been from hands less near-in this Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! Dost thou not hear my heart ?—Awake! thou shalt, and must.

CXXXIII.

It is not that I may not have incurr'd
For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd
With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound;
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;
To thee I do devote it-thou shalt take

The vengeance which shall yet be sought and found,

Which if I have not taken for the sake

But let that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.

CXXXIV.

And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now I shrink from what is suffer'd: let him speak Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak; But in this page a record will I seek. Not in the air shall these my words disperse, Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fullness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

CXXXV.

That curse shall be Forgiveness.-Have I not-
Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!-
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven,
Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied
away?

And only not to desperation driven,
Because not altogether of such clay

As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

CXXXVI.

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy
Have I not seen what human things could do?
From the loud roar of foaming calumny
To the small whisper of the as paltry few,
And subtler venom of the reptile crew,

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime-
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,
From Jove to Jesus-spared and blest by time;
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods

His way through thorns to ashes-glorious dome! Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods

Shiver upon thee-sanctuary and home
Of art and piety-Pantheon!-pride of Rome!
CXLVII.

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!
Despoil'd 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 honor'd forms, whose busts around
them close.‡

CXLVIII.

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light ?
What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!
Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sight—
Two insulated phantoms of the brain:
It is not so; I see them full and plain—

* Suetonius informs us that Julius Cæsar was particularly gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide that he was bald. A stranger in Rome would hardly have guessed at the motive, nor should we without the help of the historian.

This is quoted in the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," as a proof that the Coliseum was entire when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth, century.

The Pantheon has been made a receptable for the busts of modern great, or, at least, distinguished men. The flood of light which once fell through the large orb above on the whole circle of divinities, now shines on a numerous assemblage of mortals, some one or two of whom have been almost deified by the veneration of their countrymen.

§ This and the next three stanzas allude to the story of the Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveller by the site, or pretended site, of that adventure, now shown at the church of St. Nicholas in Carcere.

The castle of St. Angelo.

Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that he
Forsook his former city, what could be,
Of earthly structures, in his honor piled,
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

CLV.

Enter its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
CLVI.

Thou movest-but increasing with the advance, Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,

Deceived by its gigantic elegance;

Vastness which grows-but grows to harmonizeAll musical in its immensities;

Rich marbles-richer painting-shrines where flame

The lamps of gold-and haughty dome which vies In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame

Sits on the firm-set ground-and this the clouds must claim.

CLXI.

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and lightThe Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity.

CLXII.

But in his delicate form-a dream of Love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
And madden'd in that vision-are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd

The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest-
A ray of immortality-and stood
Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god!

CLXIII.

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven The fire which we endure, it was repaid By him to whom the energy was given Which this poetic marble hath array'd With an eternal glory-which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust-nor hath it caught A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which t was wrought.

CLXIV.

But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song,
The being who upheld it through the past?
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
He is no more-these breathings are his last;
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
And he himself as nothing :-if he was

Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd With forms which live and suffer-let that passHis shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,

CLXV.

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all
That we inherit, in its mortal shroud,
And spreads the dim and universal pall
Through which all things grow phantoms; and
the cloud

Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
A melancholy halo scarce allow'd

To hover on the verge of darkness; rays Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

CLXVI.

And send us prying into the abyss,

To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolved to something less than this Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame, And wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more shall hear,-but never more, Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same: It is enough in sooth that once we bore These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat was gore.

CLXVII.

Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
Such as arises when a nation bleeds
With some deep and immedicable wound;
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending
ground,