now[ou]
The arena swims around him--he is gone,[ov]
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

CXLI.

He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
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--[ow][29.H.]
All this rushed with his blood--Shall he expire
And unavenged?--Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

CXLII.

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 million's blame or praise
Was Death or Life--the playthings of a crowd--[ox][30.H.]
My voice sounds much--and fall the stars' faint rays[oy]
On the arena void--seats crushed--walls bowed--
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

CXLIII.

A Ruin--yet what Ruin! from its mass
Walls--palaces--half-cities, have been reared;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,[oz]
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.

CXLIV.

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,[pa]
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head--[512]
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.[pb]

CXLV.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand:[513]
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls--the World." From our own land
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall