Monte Pincio. Sarah Bridges Stebbins. Rome, Hills of. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Italy: Vols. XI-XIII

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Rome, Hills of

Monte Pincio

Sarah Bridges Stebbins


The Gothic Kings. Four Statues on the Pincian Hill ANCIENT captives we,
Bound eternally;
With weary hands enchained,
And faces bowed and pained,
While eras dawned and waned,	5
We thus have watched the mightiness of Rome!

Never to be free!
Whither could we flee
To reach some blessed land
Unheld by conquering band,	10
Ungrasped by outstretched hand
Of an insatiate and world-possessing Rome!

Images of stone,
Mournful and alone
Amid the bright To-Day,	15
Signs of things past away,
We symbolize the sway
Of unrelenting and resistless olden Rome!

Types of something more:
In those days of yore	20
Some subtly thinking Greek
Beholding strength grow weak,
Made deathless marble speak
Of Freedom’s yearning strife against enslaving Rome!

For as sculptor wrought	25
Farther reaching thought
Saw happy coming hour
When e’en earth’s conquering power
No more could darkly lower;
For death the prisoners freed even of law-girt Rome!	30

Musing o’er the clay,
“Lo,” he said, “alway,
O captives, ye shall stand
Personifying band,
In emblematic land,	35
Of bondage wider than the thraldom of great Rome!

“Types of awful Fate,
Common human state,
Whose chains of circumstance
Forbid the soul’s advance	40
Towards fetterless expanse
Of liberty beyond our stern condition’s Rome!

“Endless spirit-strife,
Throughout mortal life
Of longing to be free	45
From entailed misery
Of unsought destiny
Controlled and crushed by an inexorable Rome!

“As the ages roll
From man’s unseen soul	50
Shall evermore arise
The secret anguish cries
Of doubt that never dies,
Humanity’s protest against ordaining Rome!

“Questioning of death	55
‘If with end of breath
The bonds of time and place,
Of nature and of race,
Of heritage’s trace
Shall fall forever off from slaves of this earth’s Rome?’”	60

Thousands come and go
Our sad gaze below,
But few the seeing eyes
That in our captive guise
Know hidden meaning lies	65
Of Fate-environed life midst universal Rome!

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