Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night? LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas ! The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day And Livy's pictured page!--but these shall be Her resurrection; all beside-decay. Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! LXXXIII. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown— LXXXIV. The dictatorial wreath-couldst thou divine To what would one day dwindle that which made Her warriors but to conquer-she who veil'd Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd, Her rushing wings-Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd! LXXXV. Sylla was first of victors; but our own, The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell!-he Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne Down to a block-immortal rebel! See What crimes it cost to be a moment free, And famous through all ages! but beneath His fate the moral lurks of destiny; His day of double victory and death Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. LXXXVI. The third of the same moon whose former course And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway, And all we deem delightful, and consume Our souls to compass through each arduous way, Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb? Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom! LXXXVII. And thou, dread statue! yet existent in An offering to thine altar from the queen And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! The milk of conquest yet within the dome Thou standest :-Mother of the mighty heart, Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, And thy limbs black with lightning-dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? LXXXIX. Thou dost; but all thy foster-babes are dead The men of iron: and the world hath rear'd Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled In imitation of the things they fear'd, And fought and conquer'd, and the same course steer'd, At apish distance; but as yet none have, Nor could, the same supremacy have near'd, Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave XC. The fool of false dominion-and a kind Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old At Cleopatra's feet,-and now himself he beam'd, |