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| THE LOUD vettura rings along the way, | |
| White as the road with dust. The purple day | |
| O’er Monte Mario dies from off the dome, | |
| And, lo! the first star leads us into Rome. | |
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| O glorious city! Through the deepening shade | 5 |
| A thousand heroes, like the gods arrayed, | |
| And bards, with laurel rustling on their hair, | |
| Walk proudly, and speak grandly, till the air | |
| Is full of solemn majesty, and night | |
| Is half-way robbed by temples marble white. | 10 |
| Yon tramping steeds and yonder glittering wheel | |
| Chariot a Cæsar, while the commonweal | |
| Greets him with pæans, and we proudly march | |
| On toward the Forum. The triumphal arch, | |
| Burning with banners, and the murmuring street, | 15 |
| Deep strewn with roses, till the air is sweet | |
| With floating odors. How the heralds blow | |
| Their wild delirious trumpets, notes that go | |
| Like swift flames soaring with the fiery tune, | |
| Bursting from clarions blazing in the noon! | 20 |
| Whence come we? from what conquest? with what spoil? | |
| Whence are these captives, bleeding as they toil | |
| Under our load of trophies? Whips, and groans, | |
| And blood, that shames the rose leaves on the stones | |
| For depth of crimson! And the dew of tears | 25 |
| Blistering the noonday dust! O’ercome with years | |
| And toil and grief, there drops the way-worn slave | |
| Under the horses; and the conquering wave, | |
| Above his carcass, pours its glorious flood | |
| Down through the Forum in a path of blood, | 30 |
| Roaring with triumph! Do I wake or sleep? | |
| Thank Heaven, ’t was but a dream; a ruined heap | |
| The house of Cæsar and of Nero lies! | |
| And o’er the golden wall the owlet nightly cries. | |
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