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Their spoils here? Yes, and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep→ The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the cloquent air breathes-burns with Cicero !

CXIII.

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
From the first hour of empire in the bud
To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd;
But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd,
And Anarchy assumed her attributes;
Till every lawless soldier who assail'd
Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes,
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.
CXIV.

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame-
The friend of Petrarch-hope of Italy-
Rienzi! last of Romans! (1) While the tree
Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—

The forum's champion, and the people's chiefHer new-born Numa thou-with reign, alas! too brief.

CXV.

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart (2)
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert, a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,

Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied
forth.

CXVI.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops; the face [kled, Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinReflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green wild margin now no more erase

qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion, 8 "he was strong in body, he

5 Τῷ τε γὰρ σώματι ἔῤῥωιο......... καὶ τῇ ψυχῇ ἤκμαζεν, · ὡς μήθ ̓ ὑπὸ γήρως ἀμβλύνεσθαι....... καὶ οὔτ ̓ ἐφθόνει, οὔτε εσθήρει τινά, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάνυ πάντας τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἐτίμα καὶ ἐμεγάλυνες· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὔτε ἐφοβεῖτό τινα αὑτῶν, οὔτε ἐμίσει...... διαβολαῖς τε ήκιστα ἐπίστευε, καὶ ὀργῇ ἥκιστα ἐδουλοῦτο τῶν τε χρημάτων τῶν ἀλλο τρίων ἴσα καὶ φόνων τῶν ἀδίκων ἀπείχετο..... φιλούμενός τε οὖν ἐπ' αὐτοῖς μᾶλλον ἡ τιμώμενος ἔχαιρε, καὶ τῷ τε δήμῳ μετ' ἐπιείκειας συνεγίνετο, καὶ τῇ γηρουσίᾳ σεμνοπρεπῶς ὡμέλει, ἀγαπητὸς μὲν πᾶσι, φοβερὸς δὲ μηδενὶ πλὴν πολεμίοις ὤν. Hist. Rom. lib. lxviii. cap. vi, vii; tom. ii. p. 1123, 1124, édit, Hamb. 1750.

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llere didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
Egeria! thy all-heavenly bosom beating
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy, and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell?
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamour'd goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle!
CXIX.

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
Share with immortal transports ? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart

The purity of heaven to earthly joys,
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart-
The dull satiety which all destroys-

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

CXX.

Alas! our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert; whence arise
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,
Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,

was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honoured all the good, and he advanced them; and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate ; he never listened to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign ; he was equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had alfable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both ; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country.”

(1) The name and exploits of Rienzi must be familiar to the reader of Gibbon. Some details and inedited manuscripts, rela

tive to this unhappy hero, will be seen in the Historical Illustrations of the iVth Canto.

(2) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XXVII. -E.

And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps, as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. CXXI.

Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art-
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,

A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be:
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring fantasy,

And to a thought such shape and image given,
As haunts the unquench'd soul-parch'd-wea-
ried-wrung-and riven.

CXXII.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation:where, [seized? Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, The unreach'd Paradise of our despair, Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

CXXIII.

Who loves, raves-'t is youth's frenzy-but the

cure

Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize-wealthiest when most undone.

CXXIV.

We wither from our youth, we gasp awaySick-sick; unfound the boon-unslaked the thirst,

Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at firstBut all too late,-so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice-'t is the same, Each idle-and all ill-and none the worstFor all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

(1) "At all events," says the author of the Academical Questions, "I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own speculations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it ought to possess. The free and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the theme of admiration to the world. This was the proud distinction of Englishmen, and the luminous source of all their glory. Shall we then forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in the language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prejudices? This is not the way to defend

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Our life is a false nature-'t is not in
The harmony of things,—this hard decree,
This uneradicable taint of sin,

This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
The skies which rain their plagues on men like
dew-

Disease, death, bondage-all the woes we seeAnd worse, the woes we see not-which throb through

The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.
CXXVII.

Yet let us ponder boldly-'t is a base (1)
Abandonment of reason to resign

Our right of thought-our last and only place
Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:
Though from our birth the faculty divine [fined,
Is chain'd and tortured-cabin'd, cribb'd, con-
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine
Too brightly on the unprepared mind, [blind.
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the
CXXVIII.

Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

CXXIX.

Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, the cause of truth. It was not thus that our fathers maintained it in the brilliant periods of our history. Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time, while reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other: he who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot, is a fool; and he who | dares not, is a slave."-Preface, p. 14, 15, vol. i. 1805.

A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruin'd battlement,

For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.
CXXX.

O Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter

And only healer when the heart hath bled-
Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love,-sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it doth defer—
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a
CXXXI.

[gift:

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine
And temple more divinely desolate,
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate :-
If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn
This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn?
CXXXII.

And thou, who never yet of human wrong
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! (1)
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long-
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
For that unnatural retribution-just,

Had it but been from hands less dear-in this
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!
Dost thou not hear my heart?-Awake! thou
shalt, and must.

CXXXIII.

It is not that I may not have incurr'd

For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd
With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound;
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;
To thee I do devote it-thou shalt take [found,
The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and
Which if I have not taken for the sake
But let that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.
CXXXIV.

And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now
I shrink from what is suffer'd let him speak
Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;

(1) See Historical Notes, at the end of this Canto, No. XXVIII. -E.

(2) The following stanza was written as the 136th, but afterwards suppressed :

"If to forgive be heaping coals of fire

As God hath spoken-on the heads of foes,

But in this page a record will I seek.
Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
The deep prophetic fullness of this verse,
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!
CXXXV.

That curse shall be forgiveness.-Have I not-
Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!-
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot!
Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven,
Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away?
And only not to desperation driven,
Because not altogether of such clay

As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
CXXXVI.

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy,
Have I not seen what human things could do?
From the loud roar of foaming calumny
To the small whisper of the as paltry few,
And subtler venom of the reptile crew,
The Janus glance of whose significant eye,
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true,
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. (2)
CXXXVII.

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain; But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. CXXXVIII.

The seal is set.-Now welcome, thou dread power!
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here.
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear,
That we become a part of what has been,
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.
CXXXIX.

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 be-
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, [cause

Mine should be a volcano and rise higher
Than, o'er the Titans crush'd, Olympus rose,
Or Athos soars, or blazing Etna glows:-

True they who stung were creeping things, but what
Than serpent's teeth inflicts with deadlier throes?
The lion may be goaded by the gnat.-

Who sucks the slumberer's blood?-The eagle?-No: the bat,"

And the imperial pleasure.-Wherefore not ? What matters where we fall, to fill the maws Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres, where the chief actors rot. CXL.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop'd head sinks gradually lowAnd through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him-he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.

CXLI.

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away; (1) He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay; There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire, 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. CXLII.

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;

And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;
Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, (3)
My voice sounds much-and fall the star's faint

rays

On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd-And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

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But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmast arch, and gently pauses there; When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland forest, which the grey walls wear, Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head; (4) When the light shines serene but doth not glare, Then in this magic circle raise the dead: [tread. Heroes have trod this spot-'t is on their dust ye CXLV.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; (5) "When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; "And when Rome falls-the world." From our own land

Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall In Saxon times, which we are wont to call Ancient; and these three mortal things are still On their foundations, and unalter'd all ; Rome and her ruin past redemption's skill, The world, the same wide den-of thieves, or what ye will.

CXLVI.

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime-
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,
From Jove to Jesus-spared and blest by time; (6)
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods.

it the identical statue; but that statue was of bronze. The Gladiator was once in the Villa Ludovizi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right arm is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo.***

(1) Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquearian gladiator, which, in spite of Winkelmann's critieism, has been stoutly maintained; or whether it be a Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively asserted; or whether it is to be thought a Spartan or barbarian shield-bearer, according to the opinion of his Italian editor; § it must assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of Ctesilaus which represented a (4) Suetonius informs us that Julius Cæsar was particularly "wounded man dying, who perfectly expressed what there re-gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to wear mained of life in him." ** Montfaucon ++ and Maffei §§ thought

By the Abate Bracci, Dissertazione sopra un Clipeo Votivo, etc. Preface, p. 7, who accounts for the cord round the neck, but not for the horn, which it does not appear the gladiators themselves ever used. Note [A] Storia delle Arti, tom. ii. p. 205.

Either Polifontes, herald of Laius, killed by OEdipus; or Cepreas, herald of Euritheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidae from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued till the time of Hadrian; or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. See Storia delli etc. tom. ii. Arti, pag. 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, lib. ix. cap. ii. Staria, etc.. tom. ii. p. 207. Note [A].

Vulneratum deficientem fecit in quo possit intelligi quantum restat animæ " Plin. Nat. Hist, lib xxiv. cap. 8. ++ Antiq. tom. iii. par 2. tab. 155.

$ Race. Stat. tab. 61.

(2, 3) See Historical notes, at the end of this Canto, Nos. XXIX. XXX.-E.

a wreath of laurel on all occasions. lle was anxious, not to show that he was conqueror of the world, but to hide that be was bald. A stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed the motive, nor should we without the help of the historian. (5) This is quoted in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as a proof that the Coliseum was entire, when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth, century. A notice on the Coliseum may be seen in the Historical Illustrations, p. 263.

(6) "Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though exposed to repeated fires; though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so *** Mus. Capitol. tom. iii. p. 154. edit. 1755.

Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods

His way through thorns to ashes-glorious dome! Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods

Shiver upon thee-sanctuary and home
Of art and piety-Pantheon!--pride of Rome!
CXLVII.

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!
Despoil'd, yet perfect, with thy circle spreads
A holiness appealing to all hearts-
To art a model; and to him who treads
Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds
Her light through thy sole aperture; to those
Who worship, here are altars for their beads;
And they who feel for genius may repose
Their eyes on honour'd forms, whose busts around
them close. (1)

CXLVIII.

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light (2) What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again! Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sightTwo insulated phantoms of the brain: Is it not so; I see them full and plainAn old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar:-but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ?

CXLIX.

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life; Where on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves What may the fruit be yet?—I know not-Cain was Eve's.

CL.

But here youth offers to old age the food,
The milk of his own gift:-it is her sire
To whom she renders back the debt of blood
Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire

well preserved as this rotunda. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into the present worship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced their design as a model in the Catholic church."-Forsyth's Italy, p. 157.-2d edit.

(1) The Pantheon has been made a receptacle for the busts of modern great, or, at least, distinguished, men. The flood of light which once fell through the large orb above on the whole circle of divinities, now shines on a numerous assemblage of mortals, some one or two of whom have been almost deified by the veneration of their countrymen. For a notice of the Pantheon, see Historical Illustrations, p. 287.

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The starry fable of the milky way
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,

And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss [nurse!
Where sparkle distant worlds :-Oh, holiest
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.
CLII.

Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high, (3)
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,
Colossal copyist of deformity,

Whose travell'd fantasy from the far Nile's
Enormous model, doom'd the artist's toils
To build for giants, and for his vain earth,
His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: how smiles
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, [birth!
To view the huge design which sprung from such a
CLIII.

But lo! the dome-the vast and wondrous dome,(4)! To which Diana's marvel was a cellChrist's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb! I have beheld the Ephesian's miracleIts columns strew the wilderness, and dwell The hyæna and the jackall in their shade; I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary, the while the usurping Moslem pray'd; CLIV.

But thou, of temples old, or altars new, Standest alone-with nothing like to theeWorthiest of God, the holy and the true. Since Zion's desolation, when that He Forsook his former city, what could be, Of earthly structures, in his honour piled, Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.`

(2) "There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on?" etc.

This and the three next stanzas allude to the story of the Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveller by the site, or pretended site, of that adventure, now shown at the church of St. Nicholas in Carcere. The difficulties attending the full belief of the tale are stated in Historical Illustrations, p. 295.

(3) The castle of St. Angelo.-See Historical Illustrations. (4) This and the next six stanzas have a reference to the church of St. Peter. For a measurement of the comparative length of this basilica, and the other great churches of Europe, see the pavement of St. Peter's, and the Classical Tour through Italy, vol. ii. p. 125, et seq. chap. iv.

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