Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. CXLI.

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away. He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother,―he, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-60 All this rush'd with his blood--Shall he expire And unavenged?-Arise! ye Goths, and glut your

ire!

CXLII.

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam, And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,61 My voice sounds much-and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'dAnd galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

CXLIII.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities have been rear'd;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?
Alas! developed, opens the decay,
When the colossal fabric's form is near'd;

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

reft away.

Eve's.

Not by its fault-but thine: Our outward sense
Is but of gradual grasp-and as it is
That what we have of feeling most intense
Outstrips our faint expression; even so this
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice

Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great
Defies at first our Nature's littleness,
Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate

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 'twas 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

CLXVIII.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?

In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, Death hush'd that pang for ever; with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy

CLXIX.

Peasants bring forth in safety.-Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

CLXX.

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made:
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did intrust
Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd

beam'd.

CLXXI.

Wo unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, Which from the birth of manarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate" Which stumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath Against thair blind omnipotence a weight [flung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,

CLXXII.

These might have been her destiny; but no, Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe; But now a bride and mother-and now there! How many ties did that stern moment tear! From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.

CLXXIII.

70 Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears
The oak from his foundation, and which spills
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,