Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Rome
By Lord Byron (1788–1824)O R
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O’er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye
Whose agonies are evils of a day,—
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago.
The Scipios’ tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
O Tiber, through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city’s pride:
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site.
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
O’er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, “Here was, or is,” where all is doubly night?
Night’s daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt, and wrap
All round us; we but feel our way to err:
The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map,
And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer
Stumbling o’er recollections; now we clap
Our hands, and cry, “Eureka!” it is clear,—
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day
When Brutus made the dagger’s edge surpass
The conqueror’s sword in bearing fame away!
Alas for Tully’s voice and Virgil’s lay
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!