Or that at least I could, with pencill fine,
Fashion the pourtraicts of these palacis,
By paterne of great Virgils spirit divine!
I would assay with that which in me is,
To builde, with levell of my loftie style,
That which no hands can evermore compyle.
JOACHIM DU BELLAY.

Tr. Edmund Spenser.

THE COLISEUM

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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; 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.

"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.

Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,
Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine
As 't were its natural torches, for divine
Should be the light which streams here, to
illume

This long-explored but still exhaustless mine
Of contemplation; and the azure gloom

Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,

Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
And shadows forth its glory. There is given
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruined battlement,

For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its LORD BYRON.

dower.

THE COLISEUM

TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
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!