CVI. Then let the winds howl on! their harmony With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright CVII. Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 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 walls Behold the ImperialMount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. 5 CVIII. There is the moral of all human tales; 52 "Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 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 georgeous Tyranny had thus amass'd All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask- Away with words! draw near, CIX. Admire, exult-despise-laugh, weep,-for here Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build? CX. Tally was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base! To crush the imperil urn, whose ashes slept subli- CXI. Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, CXII. Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race, The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes - burns with Ci cero! CXIII. The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, CXIV. Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, The friend of Petrarch -hope of Italy The forum's champion, and the people's chief — Her new-bornNuma thou—with reign, alas! too brief. CXV. Egeria! sweet creation of some heart 56 Or wert, a young Aurora of the air, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. |