Part 34

CXXXVIII.

The seal is set.--Now welcome, thou dread Power Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear: Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear That we become a part of what has been, And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.

CXXXIX.

And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. And wherefore slaughtered? 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.

CXL.

I see before me the Gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand--his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped 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 hailed the wretch who won.

CXLI.

He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away; He recked 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, Butchered to make a Roman holiday-- All this rushed 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 roared or murmured 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, My voice sounds much--and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void--seats crushed, walls bowed, And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

CXLIII.

A ruin--yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared? Alas! developed, opens the decay, When the colossal fabric's form is neared: It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all, years, man, have reft away.

CXLIV.

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 grey 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.

CXLV.

'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls--the World.' From our own land 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 unaltered all; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den--of thieves, or what ye will.

CXLVI.

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime-- Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, From Jove to Jesus--spared and blest by time; Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods His way through thorns to ashes--glorious dome! Shalt thou not last?--Time's scythe and tyrants' rods Shiver upon thee--sanctuary and home Of art and piety--Pantheon!--pride of Rome!

CXLVII.

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts! Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads A holiness appealing to all hearts-- To art a model; and to him who treads Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds Her light through thy sole aperture; to those Who worship, here are altars for their beads; And they who feel for genius may repose Their eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close.

CXLVIII.

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight-- Two insulated phantoms of the brain: It is not so: I see them full and plain-- An old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar:--but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

CXLIX.

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where ON the heart and FROM the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves-- What may the fruit be yet?--I know not--Cain was Eve's.

CL.

But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift:--it is her sire To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypt's river:--from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man! heaven's realm holds no such tide.

CLI.

The starry fable of the milky way Has not thy story's purity; it is A constellation of a sweeter ray, And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where sparkle distant worlds:--Oh, holiest nurse! No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.