Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79. | | | | Switzerland: Avenches (Aventicum) | | Julia Alpinula | | Lord Byron (1788–1824) |
| | | | (From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage) |
| Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavor to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cœcina. |
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BY a lone wall a lonelier column rears | |
| A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days; | |
| ’T is the last remnant of the wreck of years, | |
| And looks as with the wild bewildered gaze | |
| Of one to stone converted by amaze, | 5 |
| Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands | |
| Making a marvel that it not decays, | |
| When the coeval pride of human hands, | |
| Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands. | |
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| And there—O, sweet and sacred be the name!— | 10 |
| Julia—the daughter, the devoted—gave | |
| Her youth to heaven; her heart, beneath a claim | |
| Nearest to heaven’s, broke o’er a father’s grave. | |
| Justice is sworn ’gainst tears, and hers would crave | |
| The life she lived in; but the judge was just, | 15 |
| And then she died on him she could not save. | |
| Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, | |
| And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. | | | |
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