Alaric at Rome: A Prize Poem, 1840. Matthew Arnold. 1909. The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840-1867

Verse > Matthew Arnold > Poems

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.

Alaric at Rome

A Prize Poem, 1840

[A prize poem recited in Rugby School, June 12, 1840. Published at Rugby the same year.]

	Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here
	There is such matter for all feeling.
	Childe Harold.

UNWELCOME shroud of the forgotten dead,

Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou:

Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed

O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe:

Or time’s stern hand, why blots it not away

The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay?

There are, whose glory passeth not away—

Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade:

Others there are as deathless full as they,

Who for themselves a monument have made

By their own crimes—a lesson to all eyes—

Of wonder to the fool—of warning to the wise.

III

Yes, there are stories registered on high,

Yes, there are stains time’s fingers cannot blot,

Deeds that shall live when they who did them, die;

Things that may cease, but never be forgot:

Yet some there are, their very lives would give

To be remembered thus, and yet they cannot live.

But thou, imperial City! that hast stood

In greatness once, in sackcloth now and tears,

A mighty name, for evil or for good,

Even in the loneness of thy widowed years:

Thou that hast gazed, as the world hurried by,

Upon its headlong course with sad prophetic eye.

Is thine the laurel-crown that greatness wreathes

Round the wan temples of the hallowed dead—

Is it the blighting taint dishonour breathes

In fires undying o’er the guilty head,

Or the brief splendour of that meteor light

That for a moment gleams, and all again is night?

Fain would we deem that thou hast risen so high

Thy dazzling light an eagle’s gaze should tire;

No meteor brightness to be seen and die,

No passing pageant, born but to expire,

But full and deathless as the deep dark hue

Of ocean’s sleeping face, or heaven’s unbroken blue.

VII

Yet stains there are to blot thy brightest page,

And wither half the laurels on thy tomb;

A glorious manhood, yet a dim old age,

And years of crime, and nothingness, and gloom:

And then that mightiest crash, that giant fall,

Ambition’s boldest dream might sober and appal.

VIII

Thou wondrous chaos, where together dwell

Present and past, the living and the dead,

Thou shattered mass, whose glorious ruins tell

The vanisht might of that discrownèd head:

Where all we see, or do, or hear, or say,

Seems strangely echoed back by tones of yesterday:

Thou solemn grave, where every step we tread

Treads on the slumbering dust of other years;

The while there sleeps within thy precincts dread

What once had human passions, hopes, and fears;

And memory’s gushing tide swells deep and full

And makes thy very ruin fresh and beautiful.

Alas, no common sepulchre art thou,

No habitation for the nameless dead,

Green turf above, and crumbling dust below,

Perchance some mute memorial at their head,

But one vast fane where all unconscious sleep

Earth’s old heroic forms in peaceful slumbers deep.

Thy dead are kings, thy dust are palaces,

Relics of nations thy memorial-stones;

And the dim glories of departed days

Fold like a shroud around thy withered bones:

And o’er thy towers the wind’s half-uttered sigh

Whispers, in mournful tones, thy silent elegy.

XII

Yes, in such eloquent silence didst thou lie

When the Goth stooped upon his stricken prey,

And the deep hues of an Italian sky

Flasht on the rude barbarian’s wild array:

While full and ceaseless as the ocean roll,

Horde after horde streamed up thy frowning Capitol.

XIII

Twice, ere that day of shame, the embattled foe

Had gazed in wonder on that glorious sight;

Twice had the eternal city bowed her low

In sullen homage to the invader’s might:

Twice had the pageant of that vast array

Swept, from thy walls, O Rome, on its triumphant way.

XIV

Twice, from without thy bulwarks, hath the din

Of Gothic clarion smote thy startled ear;

Anger, and strife, and sickness are within,

Famine and sorrow are no strangers here:

Twice hath the cloud hung o’er thee, twice been stayed

Even in the act to burst, twice threatened, twice delayed.

Yet once again, stern Chief, yet once again,

Pour forth the foaming vials of thy wrath:

There lies thy goal, to miss or to attain,

Gird thee, and on upon thy fateful path.

The world hath bowed to Rome, oh! cold were he

Who would not burst his bonds, and in his turn be free.

XVI

Therefore arise and arm thee! lo, the world

Looks on in fear! and when the seal is set,

The doom pronounced, the battle-flag unfurled,

Scourge of the nations, wouldst thou linger yet?

Arise and arm thee! spread thy banners forth,

Pour from a thousand hills thy warriors of the north!

XVII

Hast thou not marked on a wild autumn day

When the wind slumbereth in a sudden lull,

What deathlike stillness o’er the landscape lay,

How calmly sad, how sadly beautiful;

100

How each bright tint of tree, and flower, and heath

Were mingling with the sere and withered hues of death?

XVIII

And thus, beneath the clear, calm vault of heaven

In mournful loveliness that city lay,

And thus, amid the glorious hues of even

105

That city told of languor and decay:

Till what at morning’s hour look warm and bright

Was cold and sad beneath that breathless, voiceless night.

XIX

Soon was that stillness broken: like the cry

Of the hoarse onset of the surging wave,

110

Or louder rush of whirlwinds sweeping by

Was the wild shout those Gothic myriads gave,

As towered on high, above their moonlit road.

Scenes where a Caesar triumpht, or a Scipio trod.

Think ye it strikes too slow, the sword of fate,

115

Think ye the avenger loiters on his way,

That your own hands must open wide the gate,

And your own voice[s] guide him to his prey;

Alas, it needs not; is it hard to know

Fate’s threat’nings are not vain, the spoiler comes not slow?

120

XXI

And were there none, to stand and weep alone,

And as the pageant swept before their eyes

To hear a dim and long forgotten tone

Tell of old times, and holiest memories,

Till fanciful regret and dreamy woe

125

Peopled night’s voiceless shades with forms of long Ago?

XXII

Oh yes! if fancy feels, beyond to-day,

Thoughts of the past and of the future time,

How should that mightiest city pass away

And not bethink her of her glorious prime,

130

Whilst every chord that thrills at thoughts of home

Jarr’d with the bursting shout, ‘they come, the Goth, they come!’

XXIII

The trumpet swells yet louder: they are here!

Yea, on your fathers’ bones the avengers tread,

Not this the time to weep upon the bier

135

That holds the ashes of your hero-dead,

If wreaths may twine for you, or laurels wave,

They shall not deck your life, but sanctify your grave.

XXIV

Alas! no wreaths are here. Despair may teach

Cowards to conquer and the weak to die;

140

Nor tongue of man, nor fear, nor shame can preach

So stern a lesson as necessity,

Yet here it speaks not. Yea, though all around

Unhallowed feet are trampling on this haunted ground,

XXV

Though every holiest feeling, every tie

145

That binds the heart of man with mightiest power,

All natural love, all human sympathy

Be crusht, and outraged in this bitter hour,

Here is no echo to the sound of home,

No shame that suns should rise to light a conquer’d Rome.

150

XXVI

That troublous night is over: on the brow

Of thy stern hill, thou mighty Capitol,

One form stands gazing: silently below

The morning mists from tower and temple roll,

And lo! the eternal city, as they rise,

155

Bursts, in majestic beauty, on her conqueror’s eyes.

XXVII

Yes, there he stood, upon that silent hill,

And there beneath his feet his conquest lay:

Unlike that ocean-city, gazing still

Smilingly forth upon her sunny bay,

160

But o’er her vanisht might and humbled pride

Mourning, as widowed Venice o’er her Adrian tide.

XXVIII

Breathe there not spirits on the peopled air?

Float there not voices on the murmuring wind?

Oh! sound there not some strains of sadness there,

165

To touch with sorrow even a victor’s mind,

And wrest one tear from joy! Oh! who shall pen

The thoughts that toucht thy breast, thou lonely conqueror, then?

XXIX

Perchance his wandering heart was far away,

Lost in dim memories of his early home,

170

And his young dreams of conquest; how to-day

Beheld him master of Imperial Rome,

Crowning his wildest hopes: perchance his eyes

As they looked sternly on, beheld new victories,

XXX

New dreams of wide dominion, mightier, higher,

175

Come floating up from the abyss of years;

Perchance that solemn sight might quench the fire

Even of that ardent spirit; hopes and fears

Might well be mingling at that murmured sigh,

Whispering from all around, ‘All earthly things must die.’

180

XXXI

Perchance that wondrous city was to him

But as one voiceless blank; a place of graves,

And recollections indistinct and dim,

Whose sons were conquerors once, and now were slaves:

It may be in that desolate sight his eye

185

Saw but another step to climb to victory!

XXXII

Alas! that fiery spirit little knew

The change of life, the nothingness of power,

How both were hastening, as they flowered and grew,

Nearer and nearer to their closing hour:

190

How every birth of time’s miraculous womb

Swept off the withered leaves that hide the naked tomb.

XXXIII

One little year; that restless soul shall rest,

That frame of vigour shall be crumbling clay,

And tranquilly, above that troubled breast,

195

The sunny waters hold their joyous way:

And gently shall the murmuring ripples flow,

Nor wake the weary soul that slumbers on below.

XXXIV

Alas! far other thoughts might well be ours

And dash our holiest raptures while we gaze:

200

Energies wasted, unimproved hours,

The saddening visions of departed days:

And while they rise here might we stand alone,

And mingle with thy ruins somewhat of our own.

XXXV

Beautiful city! If departed things

205

Ever again put earthly likeness on,

Here should a thousand forms on fancy’s wings

Float up to tell of ages that are gone:

Yea, though hand touch thee not, nor eye should see,

Still should the spirit hold communion, Rome, with thee!

210

XXXVI

O! it is bitter, that each fairest dream

Should fleet before us but to melt away;

That wildest visions still should loveliest seem

And soonest fade in the broad glare of day:

That while we feel the world is dull and low,

215

Gazing on thee, we wake to find it is not so.

XXXVII

A little while, alas! a little while,

And the same world has tongue, and ear, and eye,

The careless glance, the cold unmeaning smile,

The thoughtless word, the lack of sympathy!

220

Who would not turn him from the barren sea

And rest his weary eyes on the green land and thee!

XXXVIII

So pass we on. But oh! to harp aright

The vanisht glories of thine early day,

There needs a minstrel of diviner might,

225

A holier incense than this feeble lay;

To chant thy requiem with more passionate breath,

And twine with bolder hand thy last memorial wreath!

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.

Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry