Robust and stout, ye grapple to your hearts,
And little Rome appears. Her cots arise,
Green twigs of osier weave the slender walls,
Green rushes spread the roofs; and here and there
Opens beneath the rock the gloomy cave.
Elate with joy Etruscan Tiber views
Her spreading scenes enamelling his waves,
Her huts and hollow dells, and flocks and herds,
And gathering swains; and rolls his yellow car
To Neptune's court with more majestic train.
E hills superb, ye ruins which retain
Of Rome the name august, and but the name, What relics of the height of human fame,
What traces of exalted souls remain !
Those statues, arches, theatres; -in vain
Those works divine, that splendor which became
The Queen of cities. Time,—devouring flame
Have sunk in dust! Pomp, joy, long and triumphal
A theme of vulgar scorn!-If works like these
Can for some space with Time the conflict dare,
Slowly the victor marches, sure to seize.-
Content my own distress shall I not bear?
Since all on earth must yield to Time's decrees,
Time will relieve my anguish, eud my care.
Baldassar Castiglione. Tr. Capel Lofft.
HOU noble nurse of many a warlike chief,
Who in more brilliant times the world subdued; Of old, the shrines of gods in beauty stood Within thy walls, where now are shame and grief: I hear thy broken voice demand relief,
And sadly o'er thy faded fame I brood, -
Thy pomps no more, thy temples fallen and rude,
Thine empire shrunk within a petty fief.
Slave as thou art, if such thy majesty
Of bearing seems, thy name so holy now,
That even thy scattered fragments I adore, -
How did they feel who saw thee throned on high
In pristine splendor, while thy glorious brow
The golden diadem of nations bore?
Giovanni Guidiccioni. Tr. Anon.
NHEALTHY land! that call'st thyself a state; Void, desolate! Plains barren and untilled! Mute spectres of a race; whose looks are filled With guilt, base fears, fierce and ensanguined hate! A Senate, nor to act nor to debate,
Vile paltry craft in splendid purple veiled!
Patricians of a folly less concealed
Than their vain wealth! a Prince, imagined great; By superstition hallowed! City proud
Who hast no citizens! Temples august,
Without religion! Laws corrupt, unjust,
From age to age proceeding still to worse.
Keys (as thou saidst) to which Heaven's portals bowed
For impious men - Ah, Rome, the seat of every curse.
Alfieri. Tr. Capel Lofft.
ROME BURIED IN HER OWN RUINS.
MIDST these scenes, O pilgrim ! seek'st thou Rome?
Vain is thy search,
- the pomp of Rome is fled;
Her silent Aventine is glory's tomb;
Her walls, her shrines, but relics of the dead.
That hill, where Cæsars dwelt in other days,
Forsaken mourns where once it towered sublime;
Each mouldering medal now far less displays
The triumphs won by Latium than by Time.
Tiber alone survives, - the passing wave
That bathed her towers now murmurs by her grave,
Wailing with plaintive sound her fallen fanes.
Rome! of thine ancient grandeur all is passed,
That seemed for years eternal framed to last;
Naught but the wave —a fugitive— remains.
Francisco de Quevedo. Tr. Felicia Hemans.
my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance?
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 natious! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago.
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
O Tiber, through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.
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,
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt, and 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
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!
Her resurrection; all beside decay.
Alas for Earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was
IS the morn, but dim and dark.
Whither flies the silent lark?
Whither shrinks the clouded sun?
Is the day indeed begun ?
Nature's eye is melancholy
O'er the city high and holy;
But without there is a din
Should arouse the saints within,
And revive the heroic ashes
Round which yellow Tiber dashes.
O ye seven hills! awaken,
Ere your very base be shaken!
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