All things that strike, ennoble-from the depths
Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece,
Her groves, her temples-all things that inspire
Wonder, delight! Who would not say the Forms
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent
Flocked thither to abide eternally,
Within those silent chambers where they dwell,
In happy intercourse?—And I am there!
Ah, little thought I, when in school I sate,
A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn
Glowing with Roman story, I should live
To tread the Appian, once an avenue
Of monuments most glorious, palaces,—
Their doors sealed up and silent as the night,
The dwellings of the illustrious dead: to turn
Toward Tiber, and, beyond the city gate,
Pour out my unpremeditated verse,
Where on his mule I might have met so oft
Horace himself: or climb the Palatine,
Dreaming of old Evander and his guest,
Dreaming and lost on that proud eminence,
Long while the seat of Rome, thereafter found
Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood
Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge
One in his madness: * and the summit gained,
Inscribe my name on some broad aloe-leaf,
That shoots and spreads within those very walls
Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine,
Where his voice faltered and a mother wept
Tears of delight!—But what the narrow space
Just underneath? In many a heap the ground
Heaves, as though Ruin in a frantic mood
As left to show his handiwork, not ours,
Here and there appears,
An idle column, a half-buried arch,
A wall of some great temple. It was once,
And long, the centre of their Universe,
The Forum-whence a mandate, eagle-winged,
Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend
Slowly. At every step much may be lost.
The very dust we tread stirs as with life;
And not a breath but from the ground sends up
Something of human grandeur. We are come,
Are now where once the mightiest spirits met
In terrible conflict; this, while Rome was free,
The noblest theatre on this side Heaven!
Here the first Brutus stood, when o'er the corse
Of her so chaste all mourned, and from his cloud
Burst like a god. Here, holding up the knife
That ran with blood, the blood of his own child,
Virginius called down vengeance.-But whence spoke
They who harangued the people; turning now
To the twelve tables, now with lifted hands
To the Capitoline Jove, whose fulgent shape
In the unclouded azure shone far off,
And to the shepherd on the Alban mount
Seemed like a star new risen? Where were ranged
In rough array, as on their element,
The beaks of those old galleys, destined still*
To brave the brunt of war-at last to know
A calm far worse, a silence as in death?
All spiritless; from that disastrous hour
When he, the bravest, gentlest of them all,+
Scorning the chains he could not hope to break,
Fell on his sword!-Along the Sacred Way
Hither the triumph came, and, winding round
With acclamation, and the martial clang
Of instruments, and cars laden with spoil,
Stopped at the sacred stair that then appeared,
Then through the darkness broke, ample, star-bright,
As though it led to Heaven. 'Twas night; but now
A thousand torches, turning night to day,
Blazed, and the victor, springing from his seat,
Went up, and, kneeling as in fervent prayer,
Entered the Capitol. But what are they
Who at the foot withdraw, a mournful train
In fetters? And who, yet incredulous,
Now gazing wildly round, now on his sons,
On those so young, well-pleased with all they see,
Staggers along, the last?—They are the fallen,
Those who were spared to grace the chariot-wheels;
And there they parted, where the road divides,
The victor and the vanquished—there withdrew;
He to the festal board, and they to die.
Well might the great, the mighty of the world,
They who were wont to fare deliciously,
And war but for a kingdom more or less,
Shrink back, nor from their thrones endure to look,
To think that way! Well might they in their pomp
Humble themselves, and kneel and supplicate
To be delivered from a dream like this!
Here Cincinnatus passed, his plough the while
Left in the furrow; and how many more,
Whose laurels fade not, who still walk the earth,
Consuls, Dictators, still in curule pomp
Sit and decide; and, as of old in Rome,
Name but their names, set every heart on fire!
Here, in his bonds, he whom the phalanx saved not,*
The last on Philip's throne; and the Numidian,†
So soon to say, stript of his cumbrous robe,
Stript to the skin, and in his nakedness
Thrust under ground, "How cold this bath of yours!"
And thy proud queen, Palmyra, through the sands‡
Pursued, o'ertaken on her dromedary;
Whose temples, palaces, a wondrous dream
not away, for many a league
Death, and escaped;-the Egyptian, when her asp
Came from his covert under the green leaf;*
And Hannibal himself; and she who said,
Taking the fatal cup between her hands,+
"Tell him I would it had come yesterday;
For then it had not been his nuptial gift."
Now all is changed: and here, as in the wild,
The day is silent, dreary as the night;
None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd,
Savage alike; or they that would explore,
Discuss and learnedly; or they that come,
(And there are many who have crossed the earth)
That they may give the hours to meditation,
And wander, often saying to themselves,
"This was the Roman Forum!"
YPRESS and ivy, weed and wall-flower grown
Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped
On what were chambers, arch-crushed columns
In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped Deeming it midnight:-temples, baths, or halls? Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reaped From her research hath been, that these are wallsBehold the Imperial Mount!-'tis thus the mighty falls.
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 Cicero!
HE enormous Coliseum's bulk behold,
Like some lone promontory's storm-rent brow,
That spreads its shadow o'er the deep below,
And back repels the waves in tempest rolled;
A lonely island in the sea of Time,
On whose deep-rooted base
Ages on ages in their ceaseless race
Strike and break off, and pass in idle foam,
Forgotten: thus amid the wrecks of Rome
The Coliseum lifts its brow sublime;
And looking down on all that moves below,―
C'er al' the restless range,
Where War and Violence have worked their change,
Towers motionless, and wide around it throws
The shadow of its strength-its own sublime repose.
Amid the deep arcades and winding cells
Eternal silence dwells,
Save when tempestuous whirlwinds, as they sweep
Through chasms yawning wide, huge fragments throw
From the rock's crest, as from a mountain brow;
Or, mingling with the murmur of the air,
O'er altars where of yore a shaft of fire
Rose from the martyr's pyre,
The solitary pilgrim breathes a prayer;
Or gray-stoled brethren at the stated time
In slow procession float, and chant the deep-toned
Not deeper felt that silence, that suspense
Of being, that lay here on all around,
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