CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, For which the palace of the present hour Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter And only healer when the heart hath bled - My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift : CXXXI. 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 For that unnatural retribution-just, Had it but been from hands less near-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 The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, 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; 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 fulness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse! Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven? Because not altogether of such clay CXXXVI. From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy [Between stanzas cxxxv, and CXXXVI. we find in the original MS. the following: "If to forgive be heaping coals of fire As God hath spoken-on the heads of foes, Or Athos soars, or blazing Etna glows: True, they who stung were creeping things; but what The Lion may be goaded by the Gnat. Who sucks the slumbercr's blood? Bat."] The Eagle? - No; the CXXXVII. But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : 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 because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, 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 And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away; 1 Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquearian gladiator, which, in spite of Winkelmann's criticism, 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 wounded man dying, who perfectly expressed what there remained of life in him. Montfaucon and Maffei thought 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. * Either Polifontes, herald of Laius, killed by Edipus; or Cepreas, herald of Euritheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidæ from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian; or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. See Storia delle Arti, &c. tom. ii. pag. 203, 204, 205, 206, 207. lib. ix. cap. ii. |