THE WILD pear whispers and the ivy crawls | |
| Along the circuit of thine ancient walls, | |
| Lone city of the dead! and near this mound | |
| The buried coins of mighty men are found,— | |
| Silent remains of Cæsars and of kings, | 5 |
| Soldiers of whose renown the world yet rings, | |
| In its sad story! These have had their day | |
| Of glory, and have passed like sounds away! | |
| |
| And such their fame! While we the spot behold, | |
| And muse upon the tale that time has told, | 10 |
| We ask where are they?—they whose clarion brayed, | |
| Whose chariot glided, and whose war-horse neighed; | |
| Whose cohorts hastened o’er the echoing way, | |
| Whose eagles glittered to the orient ray! | |
| |
| Ask of this fragment, reared by Roman hands, | 15 |
| That now a lone and broken column stands! | |
| Ask of that road—whose track alone remains— | |
| That swept of old o’er mountains, downs, and plains, | |
| And still along the silent champaign leads, | |
| Where are its noise of cars and tramp of steeds? | 20 |
| Ask of the dead, and silence will reply; | |
| Go, seek them in the grave of mortal vanity! | |
| |
| Is this a Roman veteran? Look again,— | |
| It is a British soldier, who, in Spain, | |
| At Albuera’s glorious fight, has bled; | 25 |
| He, too, has spurred his charger o’er the dead! | |
| Desolate, now,—friendless and desolate,— | |
| Let him the tale of war and home relate. | |
| His wife (and Gainsborough such a form and mien | |
| Would paint, in harmony with such a scene), | 30 |
| With pensive aspect, yet demeanor bland, | |
| A tottering infant guided by her hand, | |
| Spoke of her own green Erin, while her child | |
| Amid the scene of ancient glory smiled, | |
| As spring’s first flower smiles from a monument | 35 |
| Of other years, by time and ruin rent! | |
| |
| Lone city of the dead! thy pride is past, | |
| Thy temples sunk, as at the whirlwind’s blast! | |
| Silent,—all silent, where the mingled cries | |
| Of gathered myriads rent the purple skies! | 40 |
| Here where the summer breezes waved the wood | |
| The stern and silent gladiator stood, | |
| And listened to the shouts that hailed his gushing blood. | |
| And on this wooded mount, that oft of yore | |
| Hath echoed to the Lybian lion’s roar, | 45 |
| The ear scarce catches, from the shady glen, | |
| The small pipe of the solitary wren. | |
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