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From “Childe Harold,” Canto IV.
ARCHES on arches! as it were that Rome, | |
| Collecting the chief trophies of her line, | |
| Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, | |
| Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine | |
| As ’t were its natural torches, for divine | 5 |
| Should be the light which streams here, to illume | |
| This long-explored, but still exhaustless, mine | |
| Of contemplation; and the azure gloom | |
| Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume | |
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| Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, | 10 |
| Floats o’er this vast and wondrous monument, | |
| And shadows forth its glory. There is given | |
| Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, | |
| A spirit’s feeling, and where he hath leant | |
| His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power | 15 |
| And magic in the ruined battlement, | |
| For which the palace of the present hour | |
| Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. * * * * * | |
| And here the buzz of eager nations ran, | |
| In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, | 20 |
| As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. | |
| And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because | |
| Such were the bloody Circus’ genial laws, | |
| And the imperial pleasure.—Wherefore not? | |
| What matters where we fall to fill the maws | 25 |
| Of worms,—on battle-plains or listed spot? | |
| Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. | |
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| I see before me the Gladiator lie; | |
| He leans upon his hand,—his manly brow | |
| Consents to death, but conquers agony, | 30 |
| And his drooped head sinks gradually low,— | |
| And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow | |
| From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, | |
| Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now | |
| The arena swims around him,—he is gone, | 35 |
| Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. | |
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| He heard it, but he heeded not,—his eyes | |
| Were with his heart, and that was far away. | |
| He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize; | |
| But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, | 40 |
| There were his young barbarians all at play, | |
| There was their Dacian mother,—he, their sire, | |
| Butchered to make a Roman holiday!— | |
| All this rushed with his blood.—Shall he expire, | |
| And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire! | 45 |
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| But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam, | |
| And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, | |
| And roared or murmured like a mountain stream | |
| Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; | |
| Here, where the Roman millions’ blame or praise | 50 |
| Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, | |
| My voice sounds much,—and fall the stars’ faint rays | |
| On the arena void, seats crushed, walls bowed, | |
| And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. | |
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| A ruin,—yet what ruin! from its mass | 55 |
| Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared; | |
| Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, | |
| And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. | |
| Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared? | |
| Alas! developed, opens the decay, | 60 |
| When the colossal fabric’s form is neared; | |
| It will not bear the brightness of the day, | |
| Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. | |
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| But when the rising moon begins to climb | |
| Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there; | 65 |
| When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, | |
| And the low night-breeze waves along the air | |
| The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, | |
| Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar’s head; | |
| When the light shines serene, but doth not glare,— | 70 |
| Then in this magic circle raise the dead; | |
| Heroes have trod this spot,—’t is on their dust ye tread. | |
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| “While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; | |
| When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; | |
| And when Rome falls—the World.” From our own land | 75 |
| Thus spake the pilgrims o’er this mighty wall | |
| In Saxon times, which we are wont to call | |
| Ancient; and these three mortal things are still | |
| On their foundations, and unaltered all; | |
| Rome and her Ruin past Redemption’s skill, | 80 |
| The World, the same wide den—of thieves, or what ye will. | |
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