Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down

  With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown –

  LXXXIV.

  The dictatorial wreath, – couldst thou divine

  To what would one day dwindle that which made

  Thee more than mortal? and that so supine

  By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid?

  She who was named eternal, and arrayed

  Her warriors but to conquer – she who veiled

  Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed

  Until the o’er-canopied horizon failed,

  Her rushing wings – Oh! she who was almighty hailed!

  LXXXV.

  Sylla was first of victors; but our own,

  The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell! – he

  Too swept off senates while he hewed the throne

  Down to a block – immortal rebel! See

  What crimes it costs to be a moment free

  And famous through all ages! But beneath

  His fate the moral lurks of destiny;

  His day of double victory and death

  Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath.

  LXXXVI.

  The third of the same moon whose former course

  Had all but crowned him, on the self-same day

  Deposed him gently from his throne of force,

  And laid him with the earth’s preceding clay.

  And showed not Fortune thus how fame and sway,

  And all we deem delightful, and consume

  Our souls to compass through each arduous way,

  Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb?

  Were they but so in man’s, how different were his doom!

  LXXXVII.

  And thou, dread statue! yet existent in

  The austerest form of naked majesty,

  Thou who beheldest, mid the assassins’ din,

  At thy bathed base the bloody Cæsar lie,

  Folding his robe in dying dignity,

  An offering to thine altar from the queen

  Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die,

  And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye been

  Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?

  LXXXVIII.

  And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!

  She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart

  The milk of conquest yet within the dome

  Where, as a monument of antique art,

  Thou standest: – Mother of the mighty heart,

  Which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat,

  Scorched by the Roman Jove’s ethereal dart,

  And thy limbs blacked with lightning – dost thou yet

  Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?

  LXXXIX.

  Thou dost; – but all thy foster-babes are dead –

  The men of iron; and the world hath reared

  Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled

  In imitation of the things they feared,

  And fought and conquered, and the same course steered,

  At apish distance; but as yet none have,

  Nor could, the same supremacy have neared,

  Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,

  But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave,

  XC.

  The fool of false dominion – and a kind

  Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old

  With steps unequal; for the Roman’s mind

  Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould,

  With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,

  And an immortal instinct which redeemed

  The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold.

  Alcides with the distaff now he seemed

  At Cleopatra’s feet, and now himself he beamed.

  XCI.

  And came, and saw, and conquered. But the man

  Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,

  Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,

  Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,

  With a deaf heart which never seemed to be

  A listener to itself, was strangely framed;

  With but one weakest weakness – vanity:

  Coquettish in ambition, still he aimed

  At what? Can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?

  XCII.

  And would be all or nothing – nor could wait

  For the sure grave to level him; few years

  Had fixed him with the Cæsars in his fate,

  On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears

  The arch of triumph! and for this the tears

  And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,

  An universal deluge, which appears

  Without an ark for wretched man’s abode,

  And ebbs but to reflow! – Renew thy rainbow, God!

  XCIII.

  What from this barren being do we reap?

  Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,

  Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,

  And all things weighed in custom’s falsest scale;

  Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil

  Mantles the earth with darkness, until right

  And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale

  Lest their own judgments should become too bright,

  And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.

  XCIV.

  And thus they plod in sluggish misery,

  Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,

  Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,

  Bequeathing their hereditary rage

  To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage

  War for their chains, and rather than be free,

  Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage

  Within the same arena where they see

  Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.

  XCV.

  I speak not of men’s creeds – they rest between

  Man and his Maker – but of things allowed,

  Averred, and known, – and daily, hourly seen –

  The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,

  And the intent of tyranny avowed,

  The edict of Earth’s rulers, who are grown

  The apes of him who humbled once the proud,

  And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;

  Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.

  XCVI.

  Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,

  And Freedom find no champion and no child

  Such as Columbia saw arise when she

  Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?

  Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,

  Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roar

  Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled

  On infant Washington? Has Earth no more

  Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?

  XCVII.

  But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,

  And fatal have her Saturnalia been

  To Freedom’s cause, in every age and clime;

  Because the deadly days which we have seen,

  And vile Ambition, that built up between

  Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,

  And the base pageant last upon the scene,

  Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall

  Which nips Life’s tree, and dooms man’s worst – his second fall.

  XCVIII.

  Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,

  Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;

  Thy trumpet-voice, though broken now and dying,

  The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;

  Thy tree hath lost
its blossoms, and the rind,

  Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth,

  But the sap lasts, – and still the seed we find

  Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;

  So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

  XCIX.

  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,

  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.

  C.

  But who was she, the lady of the dead,

  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

  So honoured – and conspicuously there,

  Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,

  Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

  CI.

  Was she as those who love their lords, or they

  Who love the lords of others? such have been

  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

  To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar

  Love from amongst her griefs? – for such the affections are.

  CII.

  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

  Might gather o’er her beauty, and a gloom

  In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom

  Heaven gives its favourites – early death; yet shed

  A sunset charm around her, and illume

  With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,

  Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.

  CIII.

  Perchance she died in age – surviving all,

  Charms, kindred, children – with the silver grey

  On her long tresses, which might yet recall,

  It may be, still a something of the day

  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!

  CIV.

  I know not why – but standing thus by thee

  It seems as if I had thine inmate known,

  Thou Tomb! and other days come back on me

  With recollected music, though the tone

  Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan

  Of dying thunder on the distant wind;

  Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone

  Till I had bodied forth the heated mind,

  Forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind;

  CV.

  And from the planks, far shattered o’er the rocks,

  Built me a little bark of hope, once more

  To battle with the ocean and the shocks

  Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar

  Which rushes on the solitary shore

  Where all lies foundered that was ever dear:

  But could I gather from the wave-worn store

  Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer?

  There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.

  CVI.

  Then let the winds howl on! their harmony

  Shall henceforth be my music, and the night

  The sound shall temper with the owlet’s cry,

  As I now hear them, in the fading light

  Dim o’er the bird of darkness’ native site,

  Answer each other on the Palatine,

  With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright,

  And sailing pinions. – Upon such a shrine

  What are our petty griefs? – let me not number mine.

  CVII.

  Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown

  Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped

  On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown

  In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steeped

  In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,

  Deeming it midnight: – Temples, baths, or halls?

  Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reaped

  From her research hath been, that these are walls –

  Behold the Imperial Mount! ‘tis thus the mighty falls.

  CVIII.

  There is the moral of all human tales:

  ‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,

  First Freedom, and then Glory – when that fails,

  Wealth, vice, corruption – barbarism at last.

  And History, with all her volumes vast,

  Hath but one page, – ‘tis better written here,

  Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed

  All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,

  Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask – Away with words! draw near,

  CIX.

  Admire, exult – despise – laugh, weep – for here

  There is such matter for all feeling: – Man!

  Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,

  Ages and realms are crowded in this span,

  This mountain, whose obliterated plan

  The pyramid of empires pinnacled,

  Of Glory’s gewgaws shining in the van

  Till the sun’s rays with added flame were filled!

  Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build?

  CX.

  Tully was not so eloquent as thou,

  Thou nameless column with the buried base!

  What are the laurels of the Cæsar’s brow?

  Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place.

  Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,

  Titus or Trajan’s? No; ‘tis that of Time:

  Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace,

  Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb

  To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,

  CXI.

  Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,

  And looking to the stars; they had contained

  A spirit which with these would find a home,

  The last of those who o’er the whole earth reigned,

  The Roman globe, for after none sustained

  But yielded back his conquests: – he was more

  Than a mere Alexander, and unstained

  With household blood and wine, serenely wore

  His sovereign virtues – still we Trajan’s name adore.

  CXII.

  Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place

  Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep

  Tarpeian – fittest goal of Treason’s race,

  The promontory whence the traitor’s leap

  Cured all ambition? Did the Conquerors heap

  Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below,

  A thousand years of silenced factions sleep –

  The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,

  And still the eloquent air breathes – burns with Cicero!

  CXIII.

 
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:

  Here a proud people’s passions were exhaled,

  From the first hour of empire in the bud

  To that when further worlds to conquer failed;

  But long before had Freedom’s face been veiled,

  And Anarchy assumed her attributes:

  Till every lawless soldier who assailed

  Trod on the trembling Senate’s slavish mutes,

  Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.

  CXIV.

  Then turn we to our latest tribune’s name,

  From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,

  Redeemer of dark centuries of shame –

  The friend of Petrarch – hope of Italy –

  Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree

  Of freedom’s withered trunk puts forth a leaf,

  Even for thy tomb a garland let it be –

  The forum’s champion, and the people’s chief –

  Her new-born Numa thou, with reign, alas! too brief.

  CXV.

  Egeria! sweet creation of some heart

  Which found no mortal resting-place so fair

  As thine ideal breast; whate’er thou art

  Or wert, – a young Aurora of the air,

  The nympholepsy of some fond despair;

  Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,

  Who found a more than common votary there

  Too much adoring; whatsoe’er thy birth,

  Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

  CXVI.

  The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled

  With thine Elysian water-drops; the face

  Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,

  Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,

  Whose green wild margin now no more erase

  Art’s works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,

  Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base

  Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

  The rill runs o’er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep,

  CXVII.

  Fantastically tangled; the green hills

  Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass

  The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills

  Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass;

  Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,

  Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes

  Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;

  The sweetness of the violet’s deep blue eyes,

  Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.

  CXVIII.

  Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,

  Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating

  For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;

  The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting

  With her most starry canopy, and seating