The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song

Began and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot-where the Cæsar's dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths.
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth:-
But the gladiators' bloody circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,
While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As it were anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old-

The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns-It was such a night.