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 won. 1260 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 Danubelay, There were his young barbarians all at play, 1265 There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holidayAll this rushed with his blood-Shall he expire And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; 1270 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 millions' blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, 1275 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. A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared; 1280 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, 1284 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. I I love not Man the less, but Nature more, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar From these our interviews, in which I Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of steal Trafalgar. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no; the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise, we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb. In vain-in vain: strike other chords: Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble callHow answers each bold Bacchanal! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet: Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gaveThink ye he meant them for a slave? 730 735 740 745 And feeling, in a poet, is the source Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colors, like the hands of dyers. But words are things, and a small drop of ink Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; 795 'Tis strange, the shortest letter which Oh! that the present hour would lend Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. 760 Of ages; to what straits old Time re duces |