ROME.
'T is sunset on the Palatine. A flood
Of living glory wraps the Sabine hills,
And o'er the rough and serrate Appenines
Floats like a burning mantle. Purple mists
Rise faintly o'er the grey and ivied tombs
Of the Campagna, as sad memory steals
Forth from the twilight of the heart, to hold
Its mournful vigil o'er affection's dust.
Was that thy camp, old Romulus? where creeps
The clinging vine-flower round yon fallen fanes
And mouldering columns?
Lo! thy clay-built huts,
And band of malcontents, with barbarous port,
Up from the sea of buried ages rise,
Darkening the scene. Methinks I see thee stand,
Thou wolf-nursed monarch, o'er the human herd
Supreme in savageness, yet strong to plant
Barrier and bulwark, whence should burst a might
And majesty, by thy untutored soul
Unmeasured, unconceived. As little dreams
The truant boy, who to the teeming earth
Casts the light acorn, of the forest's pomp,
Which springing from that noteless germ, shall rear
Its banner to the skies, when he must sleep
A noteless atom.
Hark! the owlet's cry
That, like a muttering sybil, makes her cell
'Mid Nero's house of gold, with clustering bats,
