VIII. Yet do I feel at times my mind decline, But much to One, who long hath suffered so, Was more or less than mortal, and than me. IX. I once was quick in feeling-that is o'er;My scars are callous, or I should have dashed My brain against these bars as the sun flashed In mockery through them;-if I bear and bore The much I have recounted, and the more Which hath no words, 'tis that I would not die And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame Stamp madness deep into my memory, And woo compassion to a blighted name, Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss, Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot, Or left untended in a dull repose, This-this shall be a consecrated spot! But Thou-when all that Birth and Beauty throws Of magic round thee is extinct-shalt have One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave. No power in death can tear our names apart, As none in life could rend thee from my heart. To be entwined for ever-but too late! "The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, "by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral "virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and "those who derived any private benefit from his government, "announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public "felicity. "By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor " and an Exile, till Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. 6, p. 220. |