Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[graphic]

, the mgn piace Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race, The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleepThe Forum, where the immortal accents glow,

CXIII.

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
From the first hour of empire in the bud
To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd;
But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd,
And Anarchy assumed her attributes;
Till every lawless soldier who assail'd

Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes,
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.

CXIV.

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame-
The friend of Petrarch-hope of Italy—
Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree
Of Freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be-

The forum's champion, and the people's chief-
Her new-born Numa thou-with reign, alas! too brief.

CXV.

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart

Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert, a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,

Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small][subsumed]

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

And didst thou not, tny breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
Share with immortal transports? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart

The purity of heaven to earthly joys,

Expel the venom and not blunt the dart

The dull satiety which all destroys—

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

[graphic][merged small]

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

« AnteriorContinuar »