Page:Poems Blagden.djvu/62

But wake her and she's saved. Is there no name
Will rouse her from this sleep, as sudden flame
      Is held to smouldering fires?

Alas, alas! to me that picture seems
My country's symbol. Rome, thus fair art thou.
Dead vampire lips thus fasten on thy breath,
And beauty deepening into solemn death,
      Thus crowns thy faded brow.

She sleeps 'mid ruins, as thou sleepest, Rome!
Beneath as subtle, deadly a control;
A worse malaria enervates thy will,
And fate and falsehood both unite to kill,
      To soil and crush thy soul.

But thou art saved; loud o'er thy purple hills
The silence breaks, thy brave deliverers come;
Clear as a clarion's note the music falls,
And nations greet the kingly voice which calls,
      Arise, be free, O Rome!