LXXIX. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress! LXXX. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide 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 The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap Our hands, and cry « Eureka » it is clear rises near. LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas! The trebly hundred triumphs! 39 and the day 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, 40 Thy country's foes ere thou would pause to feel 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? Her warriors but to conquer-she who veil'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 hewed 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 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 And all we deem delightful, and consume 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 in 42 LXXXVIII. And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! 43 The milk of conquest yet within the dome Where, as a monument of antique art, And thy limbs black with lightning-dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? LXXXIX. 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 feard, And fought and conquer'd, and the same course steer'd, 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 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, With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be 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 |