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142

LORD BYRON

The arena swims around him-he is.

gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away;

He reck'd 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 mother1-he,
their sire,

Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-
All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he
expire
And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and
glut your ire!

But here, where Murder breathed her
bloody stream;

And here, where buzzing nations choked
the ways,

And roar'd or murmur'd like a moun

tain 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,

My voice sounds much-and fall the
stars' faint rays

On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls
bow'd-

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145

And galleries, where my steps seem echoes175
strangely loud.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been
rear'd;

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
And marvel where the spoil could have
appear'd.

Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but
clear'd?

Alas! developed, opens the decay,
1 After Trajan had conquered the region north
of the Lower Danube and had made it into the
Roman province of Dacia (101 B. C.), he
carried 10,000 captives to Rome and exhib-
ited them in combats for the amusement of
the people.

When the colossal fabric's form is
near'd:

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;1

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.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall
stand;

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

In Saxon times, which we are wont to
call

Ancient; and these three mortal things
are still

On their foundations, and unalter'd all;
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's

skill,

The World, the same wide den - of
thieves, or what ye will.

But I forget.-My pilgrim's shrine is

won,

And he and I must part,-so let it be,-
His task and mine alike are nearly done;

1 "Suetonius informs us that Julius Cæsar was
particularly gratified by that decree of the
senate which enabled him to wear a wreath of
laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, not
to show that he was the conqueror of the
world, but to hide that he was bald."-Byron,
See Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars, 1, 45.
"This is quoted in The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire as a proof that the Coliseum
Hwas entire when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pil-
grims at the end of the seventh, or the begin-
ning of the eighth century."-Byron.
Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall
51 of the Roman Empire, ch. 71 (1862 ed., p.
533); Gibbon gives the source of his quotation
in a foot-note, namely, Bede's Glossarium
(ed. Basil), 2, 407.

143

H

182 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee

183

184

185

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what
are they?

Thy waters wash'd them power while
they were free,

And many a tyrant since; their shores
obey

The stranger, slave, or savage; their
decay

Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so186
thou;-

Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves'
play,

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure
brow:

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou
rollest now.

Made them a terror- 'twas a pleasing
fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

My task is done, my song hath ceased, my theme

Has died into an echo; it is fit

The spell should break of this pro-
tracted dream.

The torch shall be extinguish'd which
hath lit

MANFRED alone.-Scene, a Gothic Gallery.
Time, Midnight.

Man. The lamp must be replenish'd,
but even then

It will not burn so long as I must watch:
My slumbers-if I slumber-are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,

5 Which then I can resist not in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear

1 The sandals indicated travel by land; the scallop-shell, which was worn in the hat, travel by sea.

2 Hamlet, I, 5, 166-7.