THE DYING SENECA. He died not as the martyr dies, Wrapped in his living shroud of flame; He fell not as the warrior falls, Gasping upon the field of fame; A gentler passage to the grave, The murderer's softened fury gave. Rome's slaughtered sons and blazing piles Had tracked the purple demon's path, And yet another victim lived To fill the fiery scroll of wrath; Could not imperial vengeance spare His furrowed brow and silver hair? The field was sown with noble blood, The harvest reaped in burning tears, When, rolling up its crimson flood, Broke the long-gathering tide of years; His diadem was rent away, And beggars trampled on his clay. None wept, none pitied ; — they who knelt At morning by the despot's throne, At evening dashed the laurelled bust, And spurned the wreaths themselves had strewn; The shout of triumph echoed wide, The self-stung reptile writhed and died! A PORTRAIT. A STILL, Sweet, placid, moonlight face, And slightly nonchalant, Which seems to claim a middle place Between one's love and aunt, Where childhood's star has left a ray In woman's sunniest sky, As morning dew and blushing day And yet, — and yet I cannot love Those lovely lines on steel; They beam too much of heaven above, Earth's darker shades to feel; Perchance some early weeds of care Around my heart have grown, And brows unfurrowed seem not fair, Because they mock my own. Alas! when Eden's gates were sealed, How oft some sheltered flower Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field, Like their own bridal bower; Yet, saddened by its loveliness, Earth's fairest child they could not bless, A ROMAN AQUEDUCT. THE sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline Hot on the green flakes of the pine, As, through the flickering noontide glare, 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 |