ere 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!

. . . . . . .

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 Caesar's head;
When the light shines serene, but doth not glare,--
Then in this magic circle raise the dead:
Heroes have trod this spot--'tis on their dust ye tread.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS

At the Storming of Rome by the Constable of Bourbon, 1527

From 'The Deformed Transformed'

'Tis the morn, but dim and dark.
Whither flies the silent lark?
Whither shrinks the clouded sun?
Is the day indeed begun?
Nature's eye is melancholy
O'er the city high and holy;
But without there is a din
Should arouse the saints within,
And revive the heroic ashes
Round which yellow Tiber dashes.
O ye seven hills! awaken,
Ere your very base be shaken!

Hearken to the steady stamp!
Mars is in their every tramp!
Not a step is out of tune,
As the tides obey the moon!
On they march, though to self-slaughter,
Regular as rolling water,
Whose high waves o'ersweep the border
Of huge moles, but keep their order,
Breaking only rank by rank.
Hearken to the armor's clank!
Look down o'er each frowning warrior,
How he glares upon the barrier:
Look on each step of each ladder,
As the stripes that streak an adder.

Look upon the bri