He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes 20 All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! 30 But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; 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. 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. 40 When the colossal fabric's form is near'd: It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there; When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head; When the light shines serene but doth not glare, Then in this magic circle raise the dead: Heroes have trod this spot-'tis on their dust ye tread. 50 While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; 6 'And when Rome falls-the World.' From our own land Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall Ancient; and these three mortal things are still 60 Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den—of thieves, or what ye will. DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE (CANTO IV, clxvii-clxxii) HARK! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd, And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled ΙΟ Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. Peasants bring forth in safety. Can it be, Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, 20 Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made Our children should obey her child, and bless'd 30 Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherd's eyes :-'twas but a meteor beam'd. Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well : 40 Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, 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 oppfest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. 50 I LOVE NOT MAN THE LESS, BUT (CANTO IV, clxxvii-clxxxiv) OH! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. ΙΟ 20 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields 31 Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 40 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou;— Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Dark-heaving—boundless, endless, and sublime, 50 бо Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy |