ROME O ROME! my country! city of the soul! What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye Whose agonies are evils of a day, A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers; dost thou flow, Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her dis tress. The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride: She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site. Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, "Here was, or is," where all is doubly night? The double night of ages, and of her, wrap All round us; we but feel our way to err: The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map, And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap Our hands, and cry, "Eureka!" it is clear,— When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. Alas, the lofty city! and alas, The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away! Alas for Tully's voice and Virgil's lay And Livy's pictured page! But these shall be Her resurrection; all beside-decay. Alas for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome LORD BYRON. was free! ROME "IF ever I in Rome should dwell,— "And there, by graves so dear to fame, So to myself, with museful mouth, I said long since, the while I paced, How doubly dreary seemed the smoke, Now, walking on this Pincian Hill, By Monte Mario's fringe of pines, Almost, I think, the heart might grow And all its life-blood learn to flow Familiar with Italian skies. Not with the love of brain or soul, But with that fiery strength we use As mother for child, as wife for spouse, So yearned, so loved I thee, O Rome! Now I have seen thee,-seen the plains, The desolate plains where thou dost lie; Where many a rock-built tomb complains Of some great name or race gone by, And past the walls that round thee sweep Just touched and softened by decay, All ancient cities, though great they be While Lincoln, throned amidst her fens, And York upon her meadow-side (A thousand milestones on her road), Are footprints, just to show the stride With which the giant Cæsar strode! Yet here, where Cæsar lies in state, O starlit streets of ancient Rome, Baptized in blood of Christian men! Happy the hearts that call ye home, And feet that toward ye turn again! I oft in dreams shall seem to see Hills where the olive and the vine Fall rippling down to meet the sea; Or underneath the branching pine Shall watch the storm-clouds sweeping by, Down from the Alban Mount in swirls, And, blackening all the vaulted sky, Rush tangling through our sculptor's curls. Ah! not too distant fall that day BESSIE RAYNER PARKES. |