Whose chains of circumstance
Forbid the soul's advance
Towards fetterless expanse
Of liberty beyond our stern condition's Rome!
"Endless spirit strife,
Throughout mortal life
Of longing to be free
From entailed misery
Of unsought destiny
Controlled and crushed by an inexorable Rome!
"As the ages roll
From man's unseen soul
Shall evermore arise
The secret anguish cries
Of doubt that never dies,
Humanity's protest against ordaining Rome!
"Questioning of Death
If with end of breath
The bonds of time and place,
Of nature and of race,
Of heritage's trace,
Shall fall forever off from slaves of this earth's Rome!"
Thousands come and go
Our sad gaze below,
But few the seeing eyes
That in our captive guise.
Know hidden meaning lies
Of Fate-environed life midst universal Rome!
Rome, Ruins of
THE RUINES OF ROME.
HOU stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seekest, And nought of Rome in Rome perceivst at all, These same olde walls, olde arches, which thou seest, Olde palaces, is that which Rome men call.
Beholde what wreake, what ruine, and what wast,
And how that she, which with her mightie powre
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd herselfe at last;
The pray of Time, which all things doth devowre!
Rome now of Rome is th' onely funerall,
And onely Rome of Rome hath victorie;
Ne ought save Tyber hastning to his fall
Remaines of all: O worlds inconstancie !
That which is firme doth flit and fall away,
And that is flitting doth abide and stay.
THESE heapes of stones, these old wals, which ye see,
Were first enclosures but of salvage soyle;
And these brave pallaces, which maystred bee
Of Time, were shepheards cottages somewhile.
Then tooke the shepheards kingly ornaments,
And the stout hynde arm'd his right hand with steele:
Eftsoones their rule of yearely Presidents
Grew great, and sixe months greater a great deele;
Which, made perpetuall, rose to so great height,
That thence th' Imperiall Eagle rooting tooke,
Till th' heaven it selfe, opposing gainst her might,
Her power to Peters successor betooke;
Who, shepheardlike, (as Fates the same foreseeing,)
Doth shew that all things turne to their first being.
O THAT I had the Thracian Poets harpe,
For to awake out of th' infernall shade
Those antique Cæsars, sleeping long in darke,
The which this auncient Citie whilome made!
Or that I had Amphions instrument,
To quicken, with his vitall notes accord,
The stonie ioynts of these old walls now rent,
By which th' Ausonian light might be restor❜d!
Or that at least I could, with pencil 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.
ROME, whose steps of power were necks of kings! Europe, the earth, beneath her eagle's wings, How, like a thing divine, she ruled the world!
Her finger lifted, thrones to dust were hurled :
High o'er her site the goddess Victory flew,
Mars waved his sword, and Fame her trumpet blew.
What is she now?- — a widow with bowed head,
Her empire vanished, and her heroes dead;
Weeping she sits, a lone and dying thing,
Beneath the yew, and years no solace bring:
What is she now? - a dream of wonder past,
A tombless skeleton, dark, lone, and vast,
Whose heart of fire hath long, long ceased to burn,
Whose ribs of marble e'en to dust return.
Her shade alone, the ghost of ancient power,
Wanders in gloom o'er shrine and crumbling tower,
Points with its shadowy hand to Cæsar's hall,
Sighs beneath arches tottering to their fall,
And glides down stately Tiber's rushing waves,
That seem to wail through all their hoary caves.
Nicholas Michell.
The hoar unconscious walls, bisson and bare,
Like an old man deaf, blind, and gray, in whom
The years of old stand in the sun and murmur
Of childhood and the dead. From parapets
- each
Where the sky rests, from broken niches,
More than Olympus, for gods dwelt in them,
Below from senatorial haunts and seats
Imperial, where the ever-passing Fates
Wore out the stone, strange hermit-birds croaked forth
Sorrowful sounds, like watchers on the height
Crying the hours of ruin. When the clouds
Dressed every myrtle on the walls in mourning,
With calm prerogative, the eternal pile
Impassive shone with the unearthly light
Of immortality. When conquering suns
Triumphed in jubilant earth, it stood out, dark
With thoughts of ages like some mighty captive
Upon his death-bed in a Christian land,
And lying, through the chant of psalm and creed
Unshriven and stern, with peace upon his brow,
And on his lips strange gods.
Careless and nodding, grew, and asked no leave,
Where Romans trembled. Where the wreck was saddest
Sweet, pensive herbs, that had been gay elsewhere,
With conscious mien of place, rose tall and still,
And bent with duty. Like some village children
Who found a dead king on a battle-field,
And with decorous care and reverent pity
Composed the lordly ruin, and sat down
Grave without tears. At length the giant lay,
And everywhere he was begirt with years,
And everywhere the torn and mouldering Past
Hung with ivy. For Time, smit with honor
Of what he slew, cast his own mantle on him,
That none should mock the dead.
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