-at least, I accompanied him to the
very flagstaff; but it was blowing so tempestuously that my wife was
obliged to be content to remain a flight of steps below, and, being the
hour of noon, the great bell (which Garibaldi struck when he called the
Romans "to arms") boomed out twelve mighty strokes with its immense
clapper, and nearly deafened her. The wind was so strong that I had to
take off my hat and cling to the parapet. But how interesting was the
panorama that met my gaze! Right over the Eternal City beneath me, and
far away beyond the plains around it, lay that great range of bare
mountains over which, in the day of her distress, poured Rome's Gothic
enemies, in wild and overwhelming hordes. Wasted and enfeebled by the
constant drain made on her resources to supply the many provinces of her
fair empire, her very vitals insidiously sapped and impoverished by the
selfish luxury and vice to which her pagan civilization had brought her,
what wonder that she fell an easy prey. Yet the heart still yearns over
her in her mighty fall, and as I looked, and caught the enthusiasm of my
Roman guide, the lament of Byron rose to my lips:

"O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
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.

"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless, and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her wither'd hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago:
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers; dost thou flow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.

"The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride;
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:--
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
O'er her dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, 'Here