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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=37830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Alaric at Rome</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here<br>  There is such matter for all feeling.<br>  Childe Harold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   I</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,<br> Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou:<br> Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed<br> O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe:<br> Or time’s stern hand, why blots it not away<br>The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   II</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> There are, whose glory passeth not away—<br> Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade:<br> Others there are as deathless full as they,<br> Who for themselves a monument have made<br> By their own cringes—a lesson to all eyes—<br>Of wonder to the fool—of warning to the wise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   III</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yes, there are stories registered on high,<br> Yes, there are stains time’s fingers cannot blot,<br> Deeds that shall live when they who did them, die<br> Things that may cease, but never be forgot<br> Yet some there are, their very lives would give<br>To be remembered thus, and yet they cannot live.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> But thou, imperial City! that least stood<br> In greatness once, in sackcloth now and tears,<br> A mighty name, for evil or for good,<br> Even in the loneness of thy widowed years:<br> Thou that hast gazed, as the world hurried by,<br>Upon its headlong course with sad prophetic eye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   V</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Is thine the laurel-crown that greatness wreathes<br> Round the wan temples of the hallowed dead—<br> Is it the blighting taint dishonour breathes<br> In fires undying o’er the guilty head,<br> Or the brief splendour of that meteor light<br>Chat for a moment gleams, and all again is night?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   VI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Fain would we deem that thou hast risen so high<br> Thy dazzling light an eagle’s gaze should tire;<br> No meteor brightness to be seen and die,<br> No passing pageant, born but to expire,<br> But full and deathless as the deep dark hue<br>Of ocean’s sleeping face, or heaven’s unbroken blue.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   VII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yet stains there are to blot thy brightest page,<br> And wither half the laurels on thy tomb;<br> A glorious manhood, yet a dim old age,<br> And years of crime, and nothingness, and gloom:<br> And then that mightiest crash, that giant fall,<br>Ambition’s boldest dream might sober and appal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   VIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Thou wondrous chaos, where together dwell<br> Present and past, the living and the dead,<br> Thou shattered mass, whose glorious ruins tell<br> The vanisht might of that discrownèd head:<br> Where all we see, or do, or hear, or say,<br>Seems strangely echoed back by tones of yesterday:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   IX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Thou solemn grave, where every step we tread<br> Treads on the slumbering dust of other years;<br> The while there sleeps within thy precincts dread<br> What once had human passions, hopes, and fears;<br> And memory’s gushing tide swells deep and full<br>And makes thy very ruin fresh and beautiful.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   X</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Alas, no common sepulchre art thou,<br> No habitation for the nameless dead,<br> Green turf above, and crumbling dust below,<br> Perchance some mute memorial at their head,<br> But one vast fane where all unconscious sleep<br>Earth’s old heroic forms in peaceful slumbers deep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Thy dead are kings, thy dust are palaces,<br> Relics of nations thy memorial-stones:<br> And the dim glories of departed days<br> Fold like a shroud around thy withered bones<br> And o’er thy towers the wind’s half-uttered sigh<br>Whispers, in mournful tones, thy silent elegy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yes, in such eloquent silence didst thou lie<br> When the Goth stooped upon his stricken prey,<br> And the deep hues of an Italian sky<br> Flasht on the rude barbarian’s wild array:<br> While full and ceaseless as the ocean roll,<br>Horde after horde streamed up thy frowning Capitol.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Twice, ere that day of shame, the embattled foe<br> Had gazed in wonder on that glorious sight;<br> Twice had the eternal city bowed her low<br> In sullen homage to the invader’s might:<br> Twice had the pageant of that vast array<br>Swept, from thy walls, O Rome, on its triumphant way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Twice, from without thy bulwarks, hath the din<br> Of Gothic clarion smote thy startled ear;<br> Anger, and strife, and sickness are within,<br> Famine and sorrow are no strangers here:<br> Twice hath the cloud hung o’er thee, twice been stayed<br>Even in the act to burst, twice threatened, twice delayed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yet once again, stern Chief, yet once again,<br> Pour forth the foaming vials of thy wrath:<br> There lies thy goal, to miss or to attain,<br> Gird thee, and on upon thy fateful path.<br> The world hath bowed to Rome, oh! cold were he<br>Who would not burst his bonds, and in his turn be free.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XVI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Therefore arise and arm thee! lo, the world<br> Looks on in fear! and when the seal is set,<br> The doom pronounced, the battle-flag unfurled,<br> Scourge of the nations, wouldst thou linger yet?<br> Arise and arm thee! spread thy banners forth,<br>Pour from a thousand hills thy warriors of the north!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XVII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Hast thou not marked on a wild autumn day<br> When the wind slumbereth in a sudden lull,<br> What deathlike stillness o’er the landscape lay,<br> How calmly sad, how sadly beautiful;<br> How each bright tint of tree, and flower, and heath<br>Were mingling with the sere and withered hues of death?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XVIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And thus, beneath the clear, calm vault of heaven<br> In mournful loveliness that city lay,<br> And thus, amid the glorious hues of even<br> That city told of languor and decay:<br> Till what at morning’s hour lookt warm and bright<br>Was cold and sad beneath that breathless, voiceless night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XIX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Soon was that stillness broken: like the cry<br> Of the hoarse onset of the surging wave,<br> Or louder rush of whirlwinds sweeping by<br> Was the wild shout those Gothic myriads gave,<br> As towered on high, above their moonlit road,<br>Scenes where a Caesar triumpht, or a Scipio trod.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Think ye it strikes too slow, the sword of fate,<br> Think ye the avenger loiters on his way,<br> That your own hands must open wide the gate,<br> And your own voice(s) guide him to his prey;<br> Alas, it needs not; is it hard to know<br>Fate’s threat’nings are not vain, the spoiler comes not slow?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And were there none, to stand and weep alone,<br> And as the pageant swept before their eyes<br> To hear a dins and long forgotten tone<br> Tell of old times, and holiest memories,<br> Till fanciful regret and dreamy woe<br>Peopled night’s voiceless shades with forms of long Ago?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Oh yes! if fancy feels, beyond to-day,<br> Thoughts of the past and of the future time,<br> How should that mightiest city pass away<br> And not bethink her of her glorious prime,<br> Whilst every chord that thrills at thoughts of home<br>Jarr’d with the bursting shout, 'they come, the Goth, they come!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The trumpet swells yet louder: they are here!<br> Yea, on your fathers’ bones the avengers tread,<br> Not this the time to weep upon the bier<br> That holds the ashes of your hero-dead,<br> If wreaths may twine for you, or laurels wave,<br>They shall not deck your life, but sanctify your grave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Alas! no wreaths are here. Despair may teach<br> Cowards to conquer and the weak to die;<br> Nor tongue of man, nor fear, nor shame can preach<br> So stern a lesson as necessity,<br> Yet here it speaks not. Yea, though all around<br>Unhallowed feet are trampling on this haunted ground,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Though every holiest feeling, every tie<br> That binds the heart of man with mightiest power,<br> All natural love, all human sympathy<br> Be crusht, and outraged in this bitter hour,<br> Here is no echo to the sound of home,<br>No shame that suns should rise to light a conquer’d Rome.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXVI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> That troublous night is over: on the brow<br> Of thy stern hill, thou mighty Capitol,<br> One form stands gazing: silently below<br> The morning mists from tower and temple roll,<br> And lo! the eternal city, as they rise,<br>Bursts, in majestic beauty, on her conqueror’s eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXVII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yes, there he stood, upon that silent hill,<br> And there beneath his feet his conquest lay:<br> Unlike that ocean-city, gazing still<br> Smilingly forth upon her sunny bay,<br> But o’er her vanisht might and humbled pride<br>Mourning, as widowed Venice o’er her Adrian tide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXVIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Breathe there not spirits on the peopled air?<br> Float there not voices on the murmuring wind?<br> Oh! sound there not some strains of sadness there,<br> To touch with sorrow even a victor’s mind,<br> And wrest one tear from joy! Oh! who shall pen<br>The thoughts that toucht thy breast, thou lonely conqueror, then?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXIX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Perchance his wandering heart was far away,<br> Lost in dim memories of his early home,<br> And his young dreams of conquest; how to-day<br> Beheld him master of Imperial Rome,<br> Crowning his wildest hopes: perchance his eyes<br>As they looked sternly on, beheld new victories,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> New dreams of wide dominion, mightier, higher,<br> Come floating up from the abyss of years;<br> Perchance that solemn sight might quench the fire<br> Even of that ardent spirit; hopes and fears<br> Might well be mingling at that murmured sigh,<br>Whispering from all around, 'All earthly things must die.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Perchance that wondrous city was to him<br> But as one voiceless blank; a place of graves,<br> And recollections indistinct and dim.<br> Whose sons were conquerors once, and now were slaves:<br> It may be in that desolate sight his eye<br>Saw but another step to climb to victory!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Alas! that fiery spirit little knew<br> The change of life, the nothingness of power,<br> How both were hastening, as they flowered and grew,<br> Nearer and nearer to their closing hour:<br> How every birth of time’s miraculous womb<br>Swept off the withered leaves that hide the naked tomb.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> One little year; that restless soul shall rest,<br> That frame of vigour shall be crumbling clay,<br> And tranquilly, above that troubled breast,<br> The sunny waters hold their joyous way:<br> And gently shall the murmuring ripples flow,<br>Nor wake the weary soul that slumbers on below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Alas! far other thoughts might well be ours<br> And dash our holiest raptures while we gaze:<br> Energies wasted, unimproved hours,<br> The saddening visions of departed days<br> And while they rise here might we stand alone,<br>And mingle with thy ruins somewhat of our own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Beautiful city! If departed things<br> Ever again put earthly likeness on,<br> Here should a thousand forms on fancy’s wings<br> Float up to tell of ages that are gone:<br> Yea, though hand touch thee not, nor eye should see,<br>Still should the spirit hold communion, Rome, with thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXVI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> O! it is bitter, that each fairest dream<br> Should fleet before us but to melt away;<br> That wildest visions still should loveliest seem<br> And soonest fade in the broad glare of day:<br> That while we feel the world is dull and low,<br>Gazing on thee, we wake to find it is not so.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXVII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A little while, alas! a little while,<br> And the same world has tongue, and ear, and eye,<br> The careless glance, the cold unmeaning smile,<br> The thoughtless word, the lack of sympathy!<br> Who would not turn him from the barren sea<br>And rest his weary eyes on the green land and thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   XXXVIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> So pass we on. But oh! to harp aright<br> The vanisht glories of thine early day,<br> There needs a minstrel of diviner might,<br> A holier incense than this feeble lay;<br> To chant thy requiem with more passionate breath,<br>And twine with bolder hand thy last memorial wreath!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Matthew+Arnold">Matthew Arnold</a><div class=q>
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