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| HOMEWARD turning from the music which had so entranced my brain, | |
| That the way I scarce remembered to the Pincian Hill again,— | |
| Nay, was willing to forget it underneath a moon so fair, | |
| In a solitude so sacred, and so summer-like an air,— | |
| Came I to the side of Tiber, hardly conscious where I stood, | 5 |
| Till I marked the sullen murmur of the venerable flood. | |
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| Rome lay doubly dead around me, sunk in silence calm and deep: | |
| ’T was the death of desolation, and the nightly one of sleep. | |
| Dreams alone, and recollections, peopled now the solemn hour, | |
| Such a spot and such a season well might wake the Fancy’s power; | 10 |
| Yet no monumental fragment, storied arch, or temple vast, | |
| Mid the mean plebeian buildings loudly whispered of the Past. | |
| |
| Tethered by the shore, some barges hid the wave’s august repose; | |
| Petty sheds of humble merchants nigh the Campus Martius rose; | |
| Hardly could the dingy Thamis, when his tide is ebbing low, | 15 |
| Life’s dull scene in colder colors to the homesick exile show. | |
| Winding from the vulgar prospect, through a labyrinth of lanes, | |
| Forth I stepped upon the Corso where its greatness Rome retains. | |
| |
| Yet it was not ancient glory, though the midnight radiance fell | |
| Soft on many a princely mansion, many a dome’s majestic swell; | 20 |
| Though, from some hushed corner gushing, oft a modern fountain gleamed, | |
| Where the marble and the waters in their freshness equal seemed: | |
| What though open courts unfolded columns of Corinthian mould? | |
| Beautiful it was,—but altered! naught bespake the Rome of old. | |
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| So, regardless of the grandeur, passed I towards the Northern Gate; | 25 |
| All around were shining gardens, churches glittering, yet sedate; | |
| Heavenly bright the broad enclosure! but the o’erwhelming silence brought | |
| Stillness to mine own heart’s beating, with a moment’s truce of thought, | |
| And I started as I found me walking, ere I was aware, | |
| O’er the Obelisk’s tall shadow, on the pavement of the square. | 30 |
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| Ghost-like seemed it to address me, and conveyed me for a while, | |
| Backward, through a thousand ages, to the borders of the Nile; | |
| Where, for centuries, every morning saw it creeping, long and dun, | |
| O’er the stones perchance of Memphis, or the City of the Sun. | |
| Kingly turrets looked upon it, pyramids and sculptured fanes; | 35 |
| Towers and palaces have mouldered, but the shadow still remains. | |
| |
| Out of that lone tomb of Egypt, o’er the seas the trophy flew; | |
| Here the eternal apparition met the millions’ daily view. | |
| Virgil’s foot has touched it often, it hath kissed Octavia’s face,— | |
| Royal chariots have rolled o’er it, in the frenzy of the race, | 40 |
| When the strong, the swift, the valiant, mid the thronged arena strove, | |
| In the days of good Augustus and the dynasty of Jove. | |
| |
| Herds are feeding in the Forum, as in old Evander’s time; | |
| Tumbled from the steep Tarpeian all the towers that sprang sublime. | |
| Strange that what seemed most inconstant should the most abiding prove; | 45 |
| Strange that what is hourly moving no mutation can remove: | |
| Ruined lies the cirque! the chariots, long ago, have ceased to roll,— | |
| Even the Obelisk is broken,—but the shadow still is whole. | |
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| What is Fame! if mightiest empires leave so little mark behind, | |
| How much less must heroes hope for, in the wreck of humankind! | 50 |
| Less than even this darksome picture, which I tread beneath my feet, | |
| Copied by a lifeless moonbeam on the pebbles of the street; | |
| Since, if Cæsar’s best ambition, living, was to be renowned, | |
| What shall Cæsar leave behind him save the shadow of a sound? | |
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