CXXX.

Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter

And only healer when the heart hath bled—
Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love,-sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it doth defer-
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift

My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:

CXXXI.

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine

And temple more divinely desolate,

Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate :-
If thou hast ever seen me too elate,

Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne

Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn?

CXXXII.

And thou, who never yet of human wrong
Lost the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long-
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss

For that unnatural retribution-just,

Had it but been from hands less near-in this

Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!

Dost thou not hear my heart!-Awake! thou shalt, and

must.

CXXXIII.

It is not that I may not have incurr'd

For my ancestral faults or mine the wound.

I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd
With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound;
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;

To thee I do devote it-thou shalt take

The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, Which if I have not taken for the sake

But let that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.

CXXXIV.

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now I shrink from what is suffer'd: let him speak Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak; But in this page a record will I seek. Not in the air shall these my words disperse, Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

CXXXV.

That curse shall be Forgiveness.-Have I not— Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!

Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?

Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven?

Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away? And only not to desperation driven,

Because not altogether of such clay

As rots into the souls of those whom I

survey.

CXXXVI.

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy

Have I not seen what human things could do? From the loud roar of foaming calumny

To the small whisper of the as paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy

CXXXVII.

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain, But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

CXXXVIII.

The seal is set.-Now welcome, thou dread power!

Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear
That we become a part of what has been,
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.

In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause, As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man. And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure.-Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

CXL.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,

And his droop'd head sinks gradually low-
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him-he is gone,

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

CXLI.

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 mother-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!

CXLII.

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
And roar'd or murmur'd 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,
My voice sounds much-and fall the stars' faint rays
On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd-

And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.