For our remembrance, and from out the plain Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, 20 And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain May he, who will, his recollections rake, And quote in classic raptures, and awake The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, By the impatience of my early thought, My mind could relish what it might have sought, Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, 30 40 ROME (CANTO IV, lxxviii-lxxxii, cvii-cx) OH Rome! my country! city of the soul! What are our woes and sufferance? Come and sce A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 10 20 The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, And say, 'here was, or is,' where all is doubly night ? 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 : The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map, 30 And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; Alas! the lofty city! and alas ! The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 40 That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 50 On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd, Deeming it midnight :-Temples, baths, or halls? Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap'd From her research hath been, that these are wallsBehold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. There is the moral of all human tales; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 60 First Freedom, and then Glory-when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption,-barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page,-'tis better written here Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask-Away with words! draw near, Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep,-for here There is such matter for all feeling :-Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span, This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled, Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd! Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build? Tully was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base! 70 80 To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime. FREEDOM (CANTO IV, Xcvi-xcviii) CAN tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be, And Freedom find no champion and no child Such as Columbia saw arise when she Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled? Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled On infant Washington? Has Earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime; II And vile Ambition, that built up between Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, And the base pageant last upon the scene, Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst-his second fall. Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind; Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, The loudest still the tempest leaves behind; Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth, But the sap lasts,-and still the seed we find Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North; So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 20 TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA (CANTO IV, xcix-ciii) THERE is a stern round tower of other days, The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown ; What was this tower of strength? within its cave What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid ?-A woman's grave. But who was she, the lady of the dead, ΙΟ |