Selected Poems (103 page)

1200

Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,

Or seen my mind’s convulsion leave it weak;

But in this page a record will I seek.

Not in the air shall these my words disperse,

Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak

1205

The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,

And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

CXXXV

That curse shall be Forgiveness. – Have I not –

Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! –

Have I not had to wrestle with my lot!

1210

Have I not suffer’d things to be forgiven?

Have I not had my brain sear’d, my heart riven,

Hopes sapp’d, name blighted, Life’s life lied away?

And only not to desperation driven,

Because not altogether of such clay

1215

As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

CXXXVI

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy

Have I not seen what human things could do?

From the loud roar of foaming calumny

To the small whisper of the as paltry few

1220

And subtler venom of the reptile crew,

The Janus glance of whose significant eye,

Learning to lie with silence, would
seem
true,

And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,

Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.

CXXXVII

1225

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:

My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,

And my frame perish even in conquering pain;

But there is that within me which shall tire

Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;

1230

Something unearthly, which they deem not of,

Like the remember’d tone of a mute lyre,

Shall on their soften’d spirits sink, and move

In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

CXXXVIII

The seal is set. – Now welcome, thou dread power!

1235

Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here

Walk’st in the shadow of the midnight hour

With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;

Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear

Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene

1240

Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear

That we become a part of what has been,

And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.

CXXXIX

And here the buzz of eager nations ran,

In murmur’d pity, or loud-roar’d applause,

1245

As man was slaughter’d by his fellow man.

And wherefore slaughter’d? 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

1250

Of worms – on battle-plains or listed spot?

Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

CXL

I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand – his manly brow

Consents to death, but conquers agony,

1255

And his droop’d 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,

1260

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail’d the wretch who won.

CXLI

He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes

Were with his heart, and that was far away:

He reck’d not of the life he lost nor prize,

But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,

1265

There
were his young barbarians all at play,

There
was their Dacian mother – he, their sire,

Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday
¹
—

All this rush’d with his blood – Shall he expire

And unavenged? – Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

CXLII

1270

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 millions’ blame or praise

1275

Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

My voice sounds much – and fall the stars’ faint rays

On the arena void – seats crush’d – walls bow’d –

And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

CXLIII

A ruin – yet what ruin! from its mass

1280

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,

1285

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 topmast arch, and gently pauses there;

1290

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 Caesar’s head;

When the light shines serene but doth not glare,

1295

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;

When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls – the World.’ From our own land

1300

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,

1305

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;

Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

1310

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

1315

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

1320

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.

CXLVIII

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light

1325

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,

1330 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

1335

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

1340

She sees her little bud put forth its leaves —

What may the fruit be yet? – I know not – Cain was Eve’s.

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