Mosque-like, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky;
By many a pile in more than Eastern splendor,
Of old the residence of merchant kings;

The fronts of some, though Time had shattered them,

Still glowing with the richest hues of art,

ROME.

FROM " ITALY."

Had to make sure the ground they stood upon,
Rose, like an exhalation, from the deep,
A vast Metropolis, with glittering spires,
With theatres, basilicas adorned;

A scene of light and glory, a dominion,
That has endured the longest among men.

And whence the talisman by which she rose
Towering? "T was found there in the barren sea.
Want led to Enterprise; and, far or near,
Who met not the Venetian ?- now in Cairo ;
Ere yet the Califa came, listening to hear
Its bells approaching from the Red Sea coast;
Now on the Euxine, on the Sea of Azoph,
In converse with the Persian, with the Russ,
The Tartar; on his lowly deck receiving
Pearls from the gulf of Ormus, gems from Bagdad,
Eyes brighter yet, that shed the light of love
From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round,
When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed,
Treasures from unknown climes, away he went,
And, travelling slowly upward, drew erelong
From the well-head supplying all below;
Making the Imperial City of the East
Herself his tributary.

Thus did Venice rise,

Thus flourish, till the unwelcome tidings came,
That in the Tagus had arrived a fleet
From India, from the region of the Sun,
Fragrant with spices, that a way was found,
A channel opened, and the golden stream
Turned to enrich another. Then she felt
Her strength departing, and at last she fell,
Fell in an instant, blotted out and razed;
She who had stood yet longer than the longest
Of the Four Kingdoms, who, as in an Ark,
Had floated down amid a thousand wrecks,
Uninjured, from the Old World to the New.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images ;
And I spring up as girt to run a race!

Thou art in Rome! the City that so long
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;
The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled; that from nothing, from the
least,

The lowliest village (what but here and there
A reed-roofed cabin by a river-side ?)
Grew into everything; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly working her way
O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Not like the merchant with his merchandise,
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring,
But hand to hand and foot to foot through hosts,
Through nations numberless in battle array,
Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdued them all.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT.

FROM "MANFRED," ACT III. SC. 4.

THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness

I learned the language of another world.

I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, — upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome.
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near, from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot, where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst

A grove which springs through levelled battlements,

And twines its roots with the imperial hearths.
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,
While Cæsar's chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries,
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old !·
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.

THE COLISEUM.

LORD BYRON.

FROM "CHILDE HAROLD," CANTO IV.

ARCHES on arches ! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume

This long-explored, but still exhaustless, mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,

Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.

--

his eyes

He heard it, but he heeded not,
Were with his heart, and that was far away.
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother, - he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday!-

All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire,

And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire !

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam,

And here, where buzzing nations choked the

ways,

And roared or murmured like a mountain stream
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;
Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,
My voice sounds much, and fall the stars'
faint rays

On the arena void, seats crushed, walls bowed, And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

A ruin, yet what ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared!
Alas! developed, opens the decay,

When the colossal fabric's form is neared;
It will not bear the brightness of the day,
Which streams too much on all years, man, have
reft away.

But when the rising moon begins to climb
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;
When the stars twinkle through the loops of
time,

And the low night-breeze waves along the air
The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,
Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head;
When the light shines serene, but doth not
glare,

Then in this magic circle raise the dead; Heroes have trod this spot, — 't is on their dust ye tread.

Fable and Truth have shed, in rivalry,
Each her peculiar influence. Fable came,
And laughed and sung, arraying Truth in flowers,
Like a young child her grandam. Fable came;
Earth, sea, and sky reflecting, as she flew,
A thousand, thousand colors not their own:
And at her bidding, lo! a dark descent
To Tartarus, and those thrice happy fields,
Those fields with ether pure and purple light
Ever invested, scenes by him described
Who here was wont to wander and record
What they revealed, and on the western shore
Sleeps in a silent grove, o'erlooking thee,
Beloved Parthenope.

The day, so mild,

Is Heaven's own child, With Earth and Ocean reconciled; The airs I feel

Around me steal