CHORUS OF SPIRITS IN THE AIR.
Before the walls of Rome. The assault; the army in motion, with ladders to scale the walls; Bourbon, with a white scarf over his armour, foremost.
'Tis the morn, but dim and dark. Whither flies the silent lark?
Whither shrinks the clouded sun? Is the day indeed begun ? Nature's eye is melancholy O'er the city high and holy : But without there is a din Should arouse the saints within, And revive the heroic ashes Round which yellow Tiber dashes. Oh, ye seven hills! awaken, Ere your very base be shaken!
Hearken to the steady stamp ! Mars is in their every tramp! Not a step is out of tune! As the tides obey the moon,
On the march, though to self-slaughter, Regular as rolling water,
Whose high waves o'ersweep the border Of huge moles, but keep their order, Breaking only rank by rank.
Hearken to the armour's clank!
Look down o'er each frowning warrior,
How he glares upon the barrier: Look on each step of each ladder, As the stripes that streak an adder.
Look upon the bristling wall, Manned without an interval!
Round and round, and tier on tier, Cannon's black mouth, shining spear, Lit match, bell-mouthed musquetoon, Gaping to be murderous soon. All the warlike gear of old, Mixed with what we now behold, In this strife 'twixt old and new, Gather like a locusts' crew. Shade of Remus! 'Tis a time Awful as thy brother's crime ! Christians war against Christ's shrine:- Must its lot be like to thine?
Near and nearer-nearer still, As the earthquake saps the hill, First with trembling hollow motion, Like a scarce awakened ocean, Then with stronger shock and louder Till the rocks are crushed to powder, Onward sweeps the rolling host! Heroes of the immortal boast! Mighty Chiefs! Eternal shadows! First flowers of the bloody meadows Which encompass Rome, the mother Of a people without brother! Will you sleep when nations' quarrels Plough the root up of your laurels ? Ye who wept o'er Carthage burning,
Weep not-strike! for Rome is mourning * !
* Scipio, the second Africanus, is said to have repeated a verse of Homer, and wept o'er the burning of Carthage. He had better have granted it a capitulation.
Onward sweep the varied nations! Famine long hath dealt their rations. To the wall, with Hate and Hunger, Numerous as wolves, and stronger, On they sweep. Oh! glorious city, Must thou be a theme for pity!
Fight, like your first sire, each Roman! Alaric was a gentle foeman,
Matched with Bourbon's black banditti ! Rouse thee, thou eternal City !
Rouse thee! Rather give the torch With thy own hand to thy porch, Than behold such hosts pollute Your worst dwelling with their foot.
Ah! behold yon bleeding Spectre ! Ilion's children find no Hector; Priam's offspring loved their brother Roma's sire forgot his mother, When he slew his gallant twin, With inexpiable sin.
See the giant Shadow stride O'er the ramparts high and wide! When he first o'erleapt thy wall, Its foundation mourned thy fall. Now, though towering like a Babel, Who to stop his steps are able? Stalking o'er thy highest dome Remus claims his vengeance, Rome!
Now they reach thee in their anger: Fire, and smoke, and hellish clangor Are around thee, thou World's Wonder ! Death is in thy walls and under. Now the meeting steel first clashes;
Downward then the ladder crashes,
With its iron load all gleaming, Lying at its foot blaspheming! Up again! for every warrior Slain, another climbs the barrier. Thicker grows the strife: thy ditches Europe's mingling gore enriches. Rome! although thy wall may perish, Such manure thy fields will cherish, Making gay the harvest-home; But thy hearths, alas! oh, Rome !-- Yet be Rome amidst thine anguish, Fight as thou wast wont to vanquish !
Yet once more, ye old Penates! Let not your quenched hearts be Ate's! Yet again, ye shadowy heroes, Yield not to these stranger Neros! Though the son who slew his mother, Shed Rome's blood, he was your brother: 'Twas the Roman curbed the Roman ;- Brennus was a baffled foeman.
Yet again, ye Saints and Martyrs, Rise! for yours are holier charters. Mighty Gods of temples falling, Yet in ruin still appalling! Mightier founders of those altars,
True and Christian,-strike the assaulters!
Tyber! Tyber! let thy torrent
Show even Nature's self-abhorrent.
Let each breathing heart dilated Turn, as doth the lion baited ! Rome be crushed to one wide tomb,
But be still the Roman's Rome!
Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes
In variegated maze of mount and glen. Ah, me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, To follow half on which the eye dilates
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken Than those whereof such things the bard relates, Who to the awe-struck world unlock'd Elysium's gates? The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd, The cork trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, The mountain-moss by scorching skies embrown'd, The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep, The tender azure of the unruffled deep, The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
The vine on high, the willow branch below, Mix'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. Then slowly climb the many-winding way, And frequent turn, to linger as you go, From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, And rest ye at our "Lady's house of woe;" Where frugal monks their little relics show, And sundry legends to the stranger tell : Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo! Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell. And here and there as up the crags you spring, Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path: Yet deem not these devotion's offeringThese are memorials frail of murderous wrath:
For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath
Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife,
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