THE COLISEUM

Tor lofty contemplation left to Time

YPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary

By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length at length-after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie),
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory.

Vastness, and Age, and Memories of Eld!
Silence, and Desolation, and dim Night!
I feel ye now, I feel ye in your strength,
O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls;
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,

A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat;

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair

Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle; Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,

Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,

Lit by the wan light of the hornèd moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones.

But stay! these walls, these ivy-clad arcades,

These mouldering plinths, these sad and blackened shafts,

These vague entablatures, this crumbling frieze,

These shattered cornices, this wreck, this ruin,

These stones alas! these

stones gray

are they all,

All of the famed and the colossal left

By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

--

the Echoes answer me

"not all!

we rule

"Not all
Prophetic sounds and loud arise forever
From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent, we pallid stones:
Not all our power is gone, not all our fame,
Not all the magic of our high renown,
Not all the wonder that encircles us,

Not all the mysteries that in us lie,
Not all the memories that hang upon
And cling around about us as a garment,
Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."

A'

HYMN

T morn at noon at twilight dim, Maria! thou hast heard my hymn. In joy and woe, in good and ill, Mother of God, be with me still! When the hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee. Now, when storms of fate o'ercast Darkly my Present and my Past, Let my Future radiant shine With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

ISRAFEL

And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.

IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell
Whose heart-strings are a lute;
None sing so wildly well

As the angel Israfel,

And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

In her highest noon,

The enamored moon

Blushes with love,

While, to listen, the red levin

(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven)

Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire

Is owing to that lyre

By which he sits and sings,

The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

Koran.

But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty,
Where Love's a grown-up God,
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty

Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;

To thee the laurels belong,

Best bard, because the wisest:

Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above

With thy burning measures suit:
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute:
Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell

Where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not sing so wildly well

A mortal melody,

While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.