A barbarous out-cry, loud and louder yet, All, that the Earth should from her womb bring forth Once more we look, and all is still as night, And on the road, where once we might have met We meet, none else, the pilgrim and the beggar. THOSE ancient men, what were they, who achieved Setting their feet upon the necks of kings, Where true and false were with infernal art They had; and, having it, like gods not men Who in an awful vision of the night Saw the Four Kingdoms. Distant as they were, CAIUS CESTIUS. WHEN I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander up and down before the tomb of CAIUS CESTIUS. The Protestant burial-ground is there; and most of the little monuments are erected to the young; young men of promise, cut off when on their travels, full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or children borne from home in search of health. This stone was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, who will return to the house of his parents without him! that, by a husband or a father, now in his native country. His heart is buried in that grave. It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter with violets; and the Pyramid, that overshadows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land; and they are for the most part your countrymen. They call upon you in your mother tongue-in English-in words unknown to a native, known only to yourselves: and the tomb of CESTIUS, that old majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is itself a stranger, among strangers. It has stood there till the language spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read its inscription no longer. |