158

CHILDE HAROLD'S

CANTO IV.

CXLII.

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 million's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, (61) 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.

CXLIII.

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.

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 gray walls wear,
Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head; (62)
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; (63) "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 unalter'd 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; (64)
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!
Despoil'd 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 honour'd forms, whose busts around them close. (65)

CXLVIII.

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light (66)
What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!
Two forms are slowly shadow'd 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

VOL. II.

Eve's.

M

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.