XVI.

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
Her voice their only ransom from afar:
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins
Fall from his hands his idle scimitar

Starts from its belt

- he rends his captive's chains,

And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

XVII.

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
Were all thy proud heroic deeds forgot,

Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,

Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations, most of all,
Albion to thee: the Ocean Queen should not
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall

Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

XVIII.

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I loved her from my boyhood—she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;

And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's arî,
Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,

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Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

[CASCATA DEL MARMORE.]

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV.

LXIX

THE roar of waters! from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;

The fall of waters! rapid as the light
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;

The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

LXX.

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And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,

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With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald: - how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,

Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent, With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

LXXI.

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,

With many windings through the vale: Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track,

Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cataract,

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LXXII.

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,

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Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn

Its steady dyes, when all around is torn

By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:

Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,

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Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

[THE COLISEUM.]

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV.

CXL.

I SEE before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand - his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd 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,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch

who won.

CXLI.

his eyes

He heard it, but he heeded not
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-

All this rush'd with his blood Shall he expire,
And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

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CXLII.

But here, where murder breathed her bloody steam;
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain-stream
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;
Here where the Roman million's blame or praise
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint rays
On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd-
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

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CXLIII.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,

And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd'
Alas! developed, opens the decay,

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When the colossal fabric's form is near'd;

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

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Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away.

CXLIV.

But when the rising moon begins to climb

Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;

When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,

And the low night-breeze waves along the air

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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,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead:

Heroes have trod this spot 'tis on their dust ye tread. 45

CXLV.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

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And when Rome falls - the World." From our own land 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 unalter'd all; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den

- of thieves, or what ye

will.

[THE COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT.]

MANFRED, ACT III., SCENE 4.

THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful!

I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learn'd the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering

upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall,

Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber: and,
More near, from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long crv, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song

Begun and died upon the gentle wind.

Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach

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