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(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
THERE is a stern round tower of other days, | |
| Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, | |
| Such as an army’s baffled strength delays, | |
| Standing with half its battlements alone, | |
| And with two thousand years of ivy grown, | 5 |
| The garland of eternity, where wave | |
| The green leaves over all by time o’erthrown;— | |
| What was this tower of strength? within its cave | |
| What treasure lay so locked, so hid?—A woman’s grave. | |
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| But who was she, the lady of the dead, | 10 |
| Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair? | |
| Worthy a king’s,—or more,—a Roman’s bed? | |
| What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? | |
| What daughter of her beauties was the heir? | |
| How lived, how loved, how died she? Was she not | 15 |
| So honored, and conspicuously there, | |
| Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, | |
| Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot? | |
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| Was she as those who love their lords, or they | |
| Who love the lords of others? Such have been | 20 |
| Even in the olden time, Rome’s annals say. | |
| Was she a matron of Cornelia’s mien, | |
| Or the light air of Egypt’s graceful queen, | |
| Profuse of joy,—or ’gainst it did she war, | |
| Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean | 25 |
| To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar | |
| Love from amongst her griefs? for such the affections are. | |
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| Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bowed | |
| With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb | |
| That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud | 30 |
| Might gather o’er her beauty, and a gloom | |
| In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom | |
| Heaven gives its favorites,—early death; yet shed | |
| A sunset charm around her, and illume | |
| With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, | 35 |
| Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. | |
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| Perchance she died in age, surviving all,— | |
| Charms, kindred, children,—with the silver-gray | |
| On her long tresses, which might yet recall, | |
| It may be, still a something of the day | 40 |
| When they were braided, and her proud array | |
| And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed | |
| By Rome,—but whither would conjecture stray? | |
| Thus much alone we know,—Metella died, | |
| The wealthiest Roman’s wife: behold his love or pride! | 45 |
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