That in the Alp-storm smites the wasted oak
Had fell'd him there-the god-contemner prone
Dropp'd, like that wild tree from its mountains blown:
And ere the noiseless and attendant crowd
Of slaves, who watch'd behind the Tyrian cloud
That flung its folds, in many a silken fall,
Around the vastness of that gorgeous hall,
Could reach their prostrate lord, a change had cast
Its shadow o'er him-paralysed-and pass'd.
They raised him, with stunn'd frame and drooping head,
As one scarce rescued from the ghastly dead-
They fann'd his forehead, where the fiery will
With some strong agony contended still:
Sudden he shook aside their trembling cares,
And starting forward, as a maniac stares
Upon some shape-how dreadful we but guess
From the rack'd gazer's terrible distress-
Transfix'd he stood; his fear-dilated eye,
Wild with amaze, stretch'd into vacancy,
As though some palpable horror stood between
Him and the placid beauty of the night,
That, through the rose and citron's fragrant screen,
Fill'd all the portal to its Parian height.
Long stood the Cursed-with-empire moveless there,
As marble vow'd by nations to Despair;
Long seem'd to shudder at some voice, whose tone
Of thunder broke upon his ear alone:
At last the trance gave way in one wild gasp,
And, reeling back, he caught, with feeble clasp,
The nearest column, while shock'd nature's pain
Dropp'd from his forehead like the summer rain ;—
"Ho!-instant, slaves!" at length he falter'd-"Fly!
Bid to our sacred presence instantly
That prophet-raver, half a knave-half fool-
Adept in all that yonder starry school
Vouchsafes to teach its students-he who told
The wreath of empire never should enfold
This brow until o'er Baïæ's sunny bay-
A liquid path-I urged my war-steed's way;"
Fool-as if winds or waves could-
That awful voice!-tis crushing in my brain!
And thou wilt visit me, Tremendous Power,
Henceforth for ever in the stabber's hour?
'Tis well-thou look'st too dreadful for a God
That kings can bribe, or hecatombs defraud.
So let me dare thee deeply-yes, by Him
Who shakes the sable urn in Hades grim!
Or by an oath more sacred-by the shrine
Thrasyllus, an eminent soothsayer at Rome, in this and several of the preceding reigns, hazarded the prediction alluded to:-" Non magis Caïum imperaturum, quam per Baianum Sinum equis discursurum." To disprove the prediction, Caligula built the bridge from Pozzuoli to Baiæ.
And name of her-Drusilla the Divine!*
As Jove the Cloud-compeller, o'er my head
His judgment thunders ever vainly sped,
So do I shake my tameless spirit free
From all thy funeral threats, mysterious Deity!
Again-why stays the dotard?-soft-he's here-
Thrasyllus, soothsayer, dismiss the fear
That blanches in thy cheek, it mocks the snow
Of thy most reverend tresses' scanty flow.
Approach and mark me-quick-thy laggard foot
Treads onward as reluctantly and mute,
As thou wert bidden to those glorious feasts
Where I and Torture pledge the white-lipp'd guests;
As if the domes that lean in radiant line
Their ponderous gold upon the Palatine
O'erhung thee now, filled with the festal state
I love to fling around the gulf of fate.
Thou start'st, as if thy moon-bewilder'd sight
Saw not this spacious audience-hall aright:
Look round thee, priest, perchance thou'lt dare to say
This is not Naples-that Sarrentum's bay;
And there Misenum's cape, from whence-come near,
I saw what none e'er saw but me what ear
Was cursed not with till now,-THE MIGHTY SEA,
AS LIVE THE IMMORTAL GODS! HAS SPOKEN UNTO ME!
And lifted up its thousand tongues, and shook
All its wide deeps into one stormy look;
And cast the thunder of its voice's roll,
And aspect's fierceness on both sense and soul.
"List to the portent.-Scarce an hour is past,
Since, on yon emerald promontory cast,
I look'd along broad ocean's hush'd expanse
Fill'd with the strength of midnight's countenance :
Boundlessly slept the deep; nor sail nor oar
Broke from the far horizon to the shore
The stretch of waves that, lapsing calmly even,
Drank the dark glory of the sapphire heaven;
And far, away afar, Prochyta's isle
Hoarded one hue of day's departed smile,
One flush of rose-light that, I know not why,
Long as it linger'd, fix'd my feverish eye;
At length it faded into night, and then
I faced the giant loneliness again!
I listen'd-'twas the rushing through my heart
Of the hot blood in many a fiery start ;-
I listen'd 'twas the sedges' whispering speech,
Kiss'd by the waters on the silver beach ;-
Once more-I dream, or else the sounds that surge
Still louder, break from ocean's circling verge!
'Twas even so-at first a mingling hum,
Like that of nations meeting as they come,
And then a loud hubbub-a sullen roar,
And dash of waves on every sounding shore-
And billows rose and rose, without a breeze,
And the stars shrank before the howling seas-
• His favourite sister. He caused temples to be erected to her divinity-and upon
all occasions of unusual solemnity he swore by her name.
And mighty clouds came upward from afar,
Like the old giants crowding on to war;
And Heaven was hid, and hurrying voices high,
Calling and answering from the upper sky,
Shook the wild air: Ät length, when fiercest raged
The strife the waters with stunn'd Nature waged,
At once the whole tremendous Ocean heaved
Up in one wide convulsion!-Earth, relieved,
Reel'd to her centre ;-still the growing sea
Rear'd to the zenith its immensity,
And whirlwinds girt its limbs in stormy crowds,
While from above career'd the thunder-clouds,
And helm'd its shadowy head, as with the gloom
And dreadful tossing of a battle-plume;
And the broad lightnings leap'd about, and pour'd
Their terrors round it like a fiery sword!
-Thou tremblest, slave,-well, Caïus may confess
That he, for one brief moment, did no less:
Upward I strain'd my gaze to meet the brow
Whose glance I felt was burning through me now.
In vain for still the thunder's streamy scowl
Muffled the features with a mighty cowl;
And, though at times the madd'ning winds would sweep
That veil aside, I could not bear the deep
And wrathful face reveal'd and wrapp'd so soon
-Lurid and dim, like an eclipsed moon!
Fatigued I sank; but, mark me, not subdued
By aught that savours of a weaker mood.
Then on my ear a voice, whose accents spoke
With earthquake's hope-destroying loudness, broke ;
At once o'er continent and islands spread
A calm, than even that warring din more dread;
And thus-Bis-Ultor Mars! what boots it what was said?
Fierce words that told of some great Spirit still
Claiming ascendance o'er my sceptred will-
Some nameless God, who deem'd the Julian line
Were not so guiltless, not so all-divine
As slaves would hold; denouncements, too, that urge
To madness, lash'd as with a brazen scourge
My soul, and bared the future as the past,
And menaced of an hour, when on the blast
Of glory's heaven, no more our Eagle's wings
Should darken wide earth with their shadowings,
But cower and stoop before the iron hail
That broods even now in some far Polar gale!
-I bore no more-but sprang and faced the sea
With a proud Roman's conscious majesty;
And saw but there the fast-subsiding flood
Through eyes bedimm'd as with a film of blood.
"And I had still to suffer: in the east
The breeze that freshen'd o'er the billow's breast
Dash'd them to foam that, far as night prevails
Gleam'd like the canvass of a thousand sails;
And sails were there, that forward fast and free
As those white billows, bounded countlessly;
Strange spectre ships in many a ghastly fleet
Crowding, and wafting one portentous freight,
Which the rude barks demonstrate came from far
-The Spear's stern merchandsie-barbarian War!
They near'd; each vessel burden'd with its group
Of savage warriors at the shielded poop;
Tall fire-eyed men, like the Athlete we
Feed for the Arena's sportive butchery:
And still they swarm'd, and anchor'd, and outpour'd
On wailing shores that devastating Horde!
And a red haze swept o'er the groaning hills,
And every sound and sight, whose horror thrills
Perception, seem'd, by Hell's own black decision,
Roll'd on my soul in one chaotic vision!
Jove! what a blinding scroll was there unfurl'd,
The last wild throes of my own Roman World!
The ravaged Province-slaughter'd people-Fanes
Blazing and tumbling on the famish'd plains;
Even Rome, the god-built, belted round with war
And lo! the worse than Gauls burst through her every bar!
And, 'mid the Plague's rank steam, mad Famine's roar,
And woman ravish'd and man's rushing gore,
The savage feasted in our palace halls
Aye, by the jasper founts, whose lulling falls
Bless my Velitrian villa with their rain,*
Beneath its shadows of luxuriant plane
Grim Scythia styed and quaff'd each priceless cup
The Scipios' suppliant children proffer'd up!—
It was too much-a whirling in my brain-
A snapping of each hot distended vein-
And then oblivion-and that hour of fear
Was o'er-and thou, dull prophet, thou art here!
Aye, I remember all-while I have spoken,
Back on my sense reality has broken.
I have but dream'd-and yonder guarded shades
Shroud in 'mid Rome those glittering colonnades:
And I am safe-have called thee, crafty Greek,
To read the purport of my vision-speak!"
Slowly that bow'd and listening sage arose,
And, though a century's consecrating snows
Had whiten'd o'er his head, he stood as tall
In the rich shadows of that sinful hall,
And with as dauntless look, as he who read
The words Jehovah the Avenger traced
Before Belshazzar, in the hour the Mede
Burst in red valour on that godless feast.
"Caïus!" thus calmly spoke the prescience-gifted,
In accents solemn as sepulchral breeze
Through some lone cypress, while his hands uplifted
Seem'd to attest immortal witnesses:
"Caïus! my words are few; but, though the gloom
Enwraps me of inexorable doom;
Though to my searching eye thy stern intent,
Fang'd with all tortures tyrants can invent,
Is not unknown, as I have yet conceal'd
No truth thy wilful race would see reveal'd ;
The Imperial Villa at Velitræ was his favourite retreat. It was celebrated for its gigantic plane-trees; one of which was capable of containing in its branches a large table, with the Emperor, attendants, &c.-PLINY.
So do I now unshrinkingly to thee
Pronounce my last and parting prophecy :-
SIN STALKS THE LEP'ROUS EARTH FROM SHORE TO Shore,
HER BUBBLING CHALICE WILL CONTAIN NO MORE ;
THE SHUDDering gods YIELD THEIR DERIDED POWER
TO THE GREAT ANGEL OF THE COMING HOUR;
SOME ONE ALMIGHTY, THAT PROM COUNtless eld
HIS FACE IN CLOUDLESS DARKNESS HAS WITHHELD;
HIS WRATH SHALL SWEEP THE nations, and the sea
BE THE STERN SERVANT OF THAT MINISTRY!*
IN BLOOD SHALL SINK EACH CESAR'S BLOOD-STAIN'D FORM-
YE SOW'D THE WHIRLWIND-GO REAP THE STORM!
* The first serious irruption of the barbarians took place by sea. They descended
the Ister to the Euxine, and pouring through the Hellespont, inundated the coasts of
Greece, Africa, and Italy.
Adolphus, John, Esq., his memoir of John
Bannister, comedian, reviewed, 392.
Eschylus, his Eumenides, translated by Mr
Chapman, 695.
Afghanistan, India, and Persia, 93.
Alcove, Christopher, in his, 538.
Alderley, the Iron Gate, a legend of, 271.
Ancient Scottish Music, the Skene MS.,
an account of, 1.
Angelo, Michael, remarks on the peculiari-
ties of thought and style in his picture of
the last judgment, 267.
Assassins and Bull Fights, 656.
Australia, Major Mitchell's, expeditions into
that country, reviewed, 113.
Aytoun, William E., his translation into
English Trochaics, of the twenty-second
book of the Iliad, 634.
Bannister, the comedian, his memoirs by
Adolphus reviewed, 392.
Ben-na-groich, a tale, 409-Chap. II., 411
Chap. III., 413.
Browne, Washington, of New York, his
sonnets, 300.
Bull-fight at Valencia, described, 664.
Burnet's engravings of the cartoons, eulo
gised, 390.
Caligula, Vision of, by B. Simmons, 849.
Cantilena, translated into song, 537.
Carew's poetry characterised, 783.
Chapman, Mr, his translation of the Eume.
nides of Eschylus, 695.
Chambers, our, 831.
Cheminant, Louis de, his Farewell to Eng-
land, 586.
Christopher in his Alcove, 538.
Client, my first, 733.
Consciousness, Introduction to the Phi-
losophy of, Part VI., Chap. I., 201—
Chap. II., 205-Part VII., The Con-
clusion, Chap. I., 419—Chap. II., 424
-Chap. III., 426.
Corn-law question, dilemmas in regard to it
stated, 170.
Cornwall, Barry, his edition of Ben Jonson,
reviewed, 146.
Dauney, Mr, his edition of the Skene MS.
of Ancient Scottish Music, reviewed, 3.
Desultory dottings down upon Dogs, 475.
Dii Minorum Gentium, No. I., Carew and
Herrick, 782.
Dilemmas on the corn-law question, 170.
Dogs, desultory dottings down upon, 475.
Domett, Alfred, his poem from Lake Wal-
lenstadt in Switzerland, entitled Kate, 301.
Education, religious and secular, 275.
Egypt-the Trojan horse-Homer, 366.
Elections, France and her, 431.
English language, the, 455.
Family, Prospectus of a history of our,
Farewell to England, by Louis de Chemis
nant, 586.
France and her elections, 431-the defeat of
Louis Philippe would be the defeat of the
French monarchy, ib.-a rapid review of
the events of the last nine years taken,
ib.fickleness is the characteristic, and no
reliance can be placed in French assur-
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