| |
| HAIL, sacred stream, whose waters roll | |
| Immortal through the classic page! | |
| To thee the Muse-devoted soul, | |
| Though destined to a later age | |
| And less indulgent clime, to thee, | 5 |
| Nor thou disdain, in Runic lays | |
| Weak mimic of true harmony, | |
| His grateful homage pays. | |
| Far other strains thine elder ear | |
| With pleased attention wont to hear, | 10 |
| When he who strung the Latian lyre, | |
| And he who led the Aonian quire | |
| From Mantua’s reedy lakes with osiers crowned, | |
| Taught Echo from thy banks with transport to resound. | |
| Thy banks?—alas! is this the boasted scene, | 15 |
| This dreary, wide, uncultivated plain, | |
| Where sickening Nature wears a fainter green, | |
| And Desolation spreads her torpid reign? | |
| Is this the scene where Freedom breathed, | |
| Her copious horn where Plenty wreathed, | 20 |
| And Health at opening day | |
| Bade all her roseate breezes fly, | |
| To wake the sons of Industry, | |
| And make their fields more gay? | |
| |
| Where is the villa’s rural pride, | 25 |
| The swelling dome’s imperial gleam? | |
| Which loved to grace thy verdant side, | |
| And tremble in thy golden stream? | |
| Where are the bold, the busy throngs, | |
| That rushed impatient to the war, | 30 |
| Or tuned to peace triumphal songs, | |
| And hailed the passing car? | |
| Along the solitary road, | |
| The eternal flint by consuls trod, | |
| We muse, and mark the sad decays | 35 |
| Of mighty works and mighty days! | |
| For these vile wastes, we cry, had Fate decreed | |
| That Veii’s sons should strive, for these Camillus bleed? | |
| Did here, in after-times of Roman pride, | |
| The musing shepherd from Soracte’s height | 40 |
| See towns extend where’er thy waters glide, | |
| And temples rise, and peopled farms unite? | |
| They did. For this deserted plain | |
| The hero strove, nor strove in vain; | |
| And here the shepherd saw | 45 |
| Unnumbered towns and temples spread, | |
| While Rome majestic reared her head, | |
| And gave the nations law. | |
| |
| Yes, thou and Latium once were great. | |
| And still, ye first of human things, | 50 |
| Beyond the grasp of time or fate | |
| Her fame and thine triumphant springs. | |
| What though the mouldering columns fall, | |
| And strew the desert earth beneath, | |
| Though ivy round each nodding wall | 55 |
| Entwine its fatal wreath, | |
| Yet say, can Rhine or Danube boast | |
| The numerous glories thou hast lost? | |
| Can even Euphrates’ palmy shore, | |
| Or Nile, with all his mystic lore, | 60 |
| Produce from old records of genuine fame | |
| Such heroes, poets, kings, or emulate thy name? | |
| Even now the Muse, the conscious Muse, is here; | |
| From every ruin’s formidable shade | |
| Eternal music breathes on Fancy’s ear, | 65 |
| And wakes to more than form the illustrious dead. | |
| Thy Cæsars, Scipios, Catos, rise | |
| The great, the virtuous, and the wise, | |
| In solemn state advance! | |
| They fix the philosophic eye, | 70 |
| Or trail the robe, or lift on high | |
| The lightning of the lance. | |
| |
| But chief that humbler, happier train | |
| Who knew those virtues to reward | |
| Beyond the reach of chance or pain | 75 |
| Secure, the historian and the bard. | |
| By them the hero’s generous rage | |
| Still warm in youth immortal lives; | |
| And in their adamantine page | |
| Thy glory still survives. | 80 |
| Through deep savannahs wild and vast, | |
| Unheard, unknown, through ages past, | |
| Beneath the sun’s directer beams | |
| What copious torrents pour their streams! | |
| No fame have they, no fond pretence to mourn, | 85 |
| No annals swell their pride or grace their storied urn. | |
| Whilst thou, with Rome’s exalted genius joined, | |
| Her spear yet lifted, and her corselet braced, | |
| Canst tell the waves, canst tell the passing wind | |
| Thy wondrous tale, and cheer the listening waste. | 90 |
| Though from his caves the unfeeling North | |
| Poured all his legioned tempests forth, | |
| Yet still thy laurels bloom; | |
| One deathless glory still remains, | |
| Thy stream has rolled through Latian plains, | 95 |
| Has washed the walls of Rome. | |
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