And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd For they can lure no further; and the ray CLITUMNUS. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 66, 67.) BUT thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave And most serene of aspect, and most clear; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters! And on thy happy shore a Temple still, Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. TERNI. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 69-72.) THE roar of waters! from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Is an eternal April to the ground, Making it all one emerald: - how profound The gulf! and how the giant element From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent To the broad column which rolls on, and shows Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, With many windings, through the vale: Look back! Lo! where it comes like an eternity, As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cataract, Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: ROME. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 78, 79.) OH Rome! my country! city of the soul! What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see 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, An empty urn within her wither'd hands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress THE COLISEUM. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 139-145.) AND here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause, 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 on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. Of worms I see before me the Gladiator lie: Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not- his eyes Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire And unavenged? - Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint rays And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. A ruinyet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd; And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd. 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. |