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(From The Deformed Transformed)
’T IS the morn, but dim and dark. | |
| Whither flies the silent lark? | |
| Whither shrinks the clouded sun? | |
| Is the day indeed begun? | |
| Nature’s eye is melancholy | 5 |
| O’er the city high and holy; | |
| But without there is a din | |
| Should arouse the saints within, | |
| And revive the heroic ashes | |
| Round which yellow Tiber dashes. | 10 |
| O ye seven hills! awaken, | |
| Ere your very base be shaken! | |
| Hearken to the steady stamp! | |
| Mars is in their every tramp! | |
| Not a step is out of tune, | 15 |
| As the tides obey the moon! | |
| On they march, though to self-slaughter, | |
| Regular as rolling water, | |
| Whose high waves o’ersweep the border | |
| Of huge moles, but keep their order, | 20 |
| Breaking only rank by rank. | |
| Hearken to the armor’s clank! | |
| Look down o’er each frowning warrior, | |
| How he glares upon the barrier; | |
| Look on each step of each ladder, | 25 |
| As the stripes that streak an adder. | |
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| Look upon the bristling wall, | |
| Manned without an interval! | |
| Round and round, and tier on tier, | |
| Cannon’s black mouth, shining spear, | 30 |
| Lit match, bell-mouthed musquetoon, | |
| Gaping to be murderous soon. | |
| All the warlike gear of old, | |
| Mixed with what we now behold, | |
| In this strife ’twixt old and new, | 35 |
| Gather like a locust’s crew. | |
| Shade of Remus! ’t is a time | |
| Awful as thy brother’s crime! | |
| Christians war against Christ’s shrine: | |
| Must its lot be like to thine? | 40 |
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| Near—and near—nearer still, | |
| As the earthquake saps the hill, | |
| First with trembling, hollow motion, | |
| Like a scarce-awakened ocean, | |
| Then with stronger shock and louder, | 45 |
| Till the rocks are crushed to powder,— | |
| Onward sweeps the rolling host! | |
| Heroes of the immortal boast! | |
| Mighty chiefs! eternal shadows! | |
| First flowers of the bloody meadows | 50 |
| Which encompass Rome, the mother | |
| Of a people without brother! | |
| Will you sleep when nations’ quarrels | |
| Plough the root up of your laurels? | |
| Ye who wept o’er Carthage burning, | 55 |
| Weep not,—strike! for Rome is mourning! | |
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| Onward sweep the varied nations! | |
| Famine long hath dealt their rations; | |
| To the wall, with hate and hunger, | |
| Numerous as wolves, and stronger, | 60 |
| On they sweep. O glorious city, | |
| Must thou be a theme for pity? | |
| Fight, like your first sire, each Roman! | |
| Alaric was a gentle foeman, | |
| Matched with Bourbon’s black banditti! | 65 |
| Rouse thee, thou Eternal City! | |
| Rouse thee! Rather give the porch | |
| With thy own hand to thy torch, | |
| Than behold such hosts pollute | |
| Your worst dwelling with their foot. | 70 |
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| Ah! behold yon bleeding spectre! | |
| Ilion’s children find no Hector; | |
| Priam’s offspring loved their brother; | |
| Roma’s sire forgot his mother, | |
| When he slew his gallant twin, | 75 |
| With inexpiable sin. | |
| See the giant shadow stride | |
| O’er the ramparts high and wide! | |
| When he first o’erleapt thy wall, | |
| Its foundation mourned thy fall. | 80 |
| Now, though towering like a Babel, | |
| Who to stop his steps are able? | |
| Stalking o’er thy highest dome, | |
| Remus claims his vengeance, Rome! | |
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| Now they reach thee in their anger: | 85 |
| Fire and smoke and hellish clangor | |
| Are around thee, thou world’s wonder! | |
| Death is in thy walls and under. | |
| Now the meeting steel first clashes; | |
| Downward then the ladder crashes, | 90 |
| With its iron load all gleaming, | |
| Lying at its foot blaspheming! | |
| Up again! for every warrior | |
| Slain, another climbs the barrier. | |
| Thicker grows the strife: thy ditches | 95 |
| Europe’s mingling gore enriches. | |
| Rome! Although thy wall may perish, | |
| Such manure thy fields will cherish, | |
| Making gay the harvest-home; | |
| But thy hearths, alas, O Rome! | 100 |
| Yet be Rome amidst thine anguish, | |
| Fight as thou wast wont to vanquish! | |
| Yet once more, ye old Penates! | |
| Let not your quenched hearths be Ate’s! | |
| Yet again, ye shadowy heroes, | 105 |
| Yield not to these stranger Neros! | |
| Though the son who slew his mother | |
| Shed Rome’s blood, he was your brother: | |
| ’T was the Roman curbed the Roman; | |
| Brennus was a baffled foeman. | 110 |
| Yet again, ye saints and martyrs, | |
| Rise, for yours are holier charters. | |
| Mighty gods of temples falling, | |
| Yet in ruin still appalling! | |
| Mightier founders of those altars, | 115 |
| True and Christian,—strike the assaulters! | |
| Tiber! Tiber! let thy torrent | |
| Show even nature’s self abhorrent, | |
| Let each breathing heart dilated | |
| Turn, as doth the lion baited! | 120 |
| Rome be crushed to one wide tomb, | |
| But be still the Roman’s Rome! | |
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