Of gallant Roman cavalry

Ride rallying to their posts.

The best of Rome was buried here,
Yet lonely is the way!
No living race esteems it dear,

No pilgrim comes to pray.

The nameless tombs are overthrown
And open to the air,

And scarce the very race is known
Of nobles resting there.

The thick wild grass above them waves, A fence on either hand;

And, quivering o'er the traveller's head,
The long electric wires

Wail faint and sweet about the dead
A dirge which never tires.

Pale shades that walk the Elysian groves
Would chant with tones like these,
Whose minor music softly moves

Responsive to the breeze.

When homeward bent at twilight hours

A yearning thrills through me; That long dim line of distant towers, Like mountains seen at sea!

WE-STRUCK I gazed upon that rock-paved way,

The Appian Road; marmorean witness still

Of Rome's resistless stride and fateful will,
Which mocked at limits, opening out for aye
Divergent paths to one imperial sway.

The nations verily their parts fulfil;

And war must plough the fields which law shall till;
Therefore Rome triumphed till the appointed day.
Then from the Catacombs, like waves, upburst
The host of God, and scaled, as in an hour,
O'er all the earth the mountain-seats of power.
Gladly in that baptismal flood immersed

The old Empire died to live. Once more on high
It sits; now clothed with immortality!

THE

A ROMAN AQUEDUCT.

Aubrey de Vere.

HE sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline
When noon her languid hand has laid

Hot on the green flakes of the pine,

Beneath its narrow disk of shade;

As, through the flickering noontide glare,
She gazes on the rainbow chain

Of arches, lifting once in air

The rivers of the Roman's plain;

Say, does her wandering eye recall
The mountain-current's icy wave,
Or for the dead one tear let fall,

Whose founts are broken by their grave?

From stone to stone the ivy weaves
Her braided tracery's winding veil,
And lacing stalks and tangled leaves
Nod heavy in the drowsy gale.

And lightly floats the pendent vine,

That swings beneath her slender bow, Arch answering arch, whose rounded line Seems mirrored in the wreath below.

How patient Nature smiles at Fame!

The weeds, that strewed the victor's way,
Feed on his dust to shroud his name,
Green where his proudest towers decay.

See, through that channel, empty now,
The scanty rain its tribute pours,
Which cooled the lip and laved the brow
Of conquerors from a hundred shores.

Thus bending o'er the nation's bier,

Whose wants the captive earth supplied,

The dew of Memory's passing tear

Falls on the arches of her pride!

Oliver Wendell Holmes,

TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA.

HERE is a stern round tower of other days,

THERE

Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
Such as an army's baffled strength delays,
Standing with half its battlements alone,
And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
The garland of eternity, where wave

The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown;

What was this tower of strength? within its cave What treasure lay so locked, so hid? A woman's

grave.

But who was she, the lady of the dead,

Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?

Worthy a king's,

--

or more, a Roman's bed?

What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?

What daughter of her beauties was the heir?

How lived, how loved, how died she? Was she not So honored, and conspicuously there,

Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

Was she as those who love their lords, or they
Who love the lords of others? Such have been
Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say.
Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen,
Profuse of joy, or 'gainst it did she war,
Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean

To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar

Love from amongst her griefs? for such the affections are.

Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bowed
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom

Heaven gives its favorites, — early death; yet shed A sunset charm around her, and illume

With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.

Perchance she died in age, surviving all,
Charms, kindred, children, -with the silver-gray
On her long tresses, which might yet recall,
It may be, still a something of the day
When they were braided, and her proud array
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed
By Rome, but whither would conjecture stray?

Thus much alone we know, — Metella died,

The wealthiest Roman's wife: behold his love or pride! Lord Byron.

THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA.

TOP on the Appian Way,

STOP

In the Roman Campania.

Stop at my tomb,

The tomb of Cecilia Metella:

To-day, as you see it,

Alaric saw it ages ago

When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,