An empty urn within her wither'd hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress

THE COLISEUM.

(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 139-145.)

AND here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause, As man was slaughter'd by his fellow-man. And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure. Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low
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 hail'd the wretch

who won.

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

Shall he expire

All this rush'd with his blood And unavenged? — Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

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 millions' blame or praise
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd And 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.
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,

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 Cæsar's head;
When the light shines serene but doth not glare,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead:

Heroes have trod this spot 't is on their dust ye tread.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls-the World."

own land

From our

Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call Ancient; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unalter'd all; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den of thieves, or what ye will.

TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA.

(CHILDE HAROLD, Cante iv. Stanzas 99-103.)

THERE is a stern round tower of other days
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
Such as an army's baffled strength delays,
Standing with half its battlements alone,
And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
The garland of eternity, where wave

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,

Tomb'd in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?

--

Worthy a king's or more a Roman's bed?
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?
What daughter of her beauties was the heir?

How lived

not

how loved-how died she? Was she.

So honor'd

and conspicuously there,

Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,

Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

Was she as those who love their lords, or they
Who love the lords of others? such have been
Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say.
Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen,
Profuse of joy-or 'gainst it did she war,
Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean

To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar

Love from amongst her griefs? —for such the affections

are.

Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bow'd
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom

Heaven gives its favorites — early death; yet shed
A sunset charm around her, and illumẹ

With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,

Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.

Perchance she died in age

Charms, kindred, children

surviving all,

- with the silver gray

On her long tresses, which might yet recall, It may be, still a something of the day When they were braided, and her proud array And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed By Rome - but whither would Conjecture stray? Thus much alone we know - Metella died, The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride!

GROTTO OF EGERIA.

(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 115-124.)

EGERIA! Sweet creation of some heart

Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert,
- a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,

Who found a more than common votary there

Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,

Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled

With thine Elysian water-drops; the face