LI

Behold your work! Accuse nor fate nor God;
Justice' poised scales are weighed alike for all;
Nations before you the same path had trod,
But you had godlike spirits, to recall
How single virtue stays an empire's fall.
Bear witness one, immortal Trajan! thou,
Thou who didst rear again the old senate-hall,
And all its pristine dignity avow,
Thou whose name awed the Dacian in his wilds of snow!

LII

O, had Rome shared thy aspirations, time
Nor war had overthrown her! she had stood
As stands thy column lonely and sublime
Amid her ruins; the barbarian flood
Had rolled beneath her legions' feet subdued;
Caesars had crowned their fields with victory's name,
And Cato's virtue sanctified the good;
The Forum yet had glowed with Tully's flame,
Altar of liberty, of past, of present fame.

LIII

But luxury ruled justice, power repelled
Appealing freedom, life was bought and sold,
Till slavery fawned upon the hand that felled;
Nearer unchecked the hosts barbarian rolled,
Till Rome's majestic walls their march controlled:
Where were those legions valour's self might shun?
Pent in their gates like sheep within the fold,
Their first faint fight was ended when begun,
Till the awed Savage, entering, dared not deem her won!

LIV

There, from that day, Goth, Hun, and Vandal sunk
The ploughshares of their ruin: nought recalls
Save scattered bones where stood the mighty trunk;
The Alp checked not, the avalanche's falls
Crushed not, nor Tiber stayed, nor triple walls,
The storm o'erwhelming; thou hast proved the worst,
How lowered the nature tyranny enthralls;
Nations beheld thee in thy slavery nursed,
Clanking the chains defiled the Helot feared to burst.

LV

Yet be awarded gratitude sedate
To her who made the nations what they are;
Attestor of the truth regenerate;
She who, when fallen her ascendant star,
Sent forth once more her eagles, not with war,
But with the olive from her ark of peace;
Religion sate in her triumphal car;
Before it charity taught strife to cease,
The earth beneath its track one harvest of increase.

LVI

Yet be all honour hers; the mother she
Of saints and heroes, who the earth o'erran,
The conqueror first, then saviour of the free;
She found the savage, but she left the man
Refined and softened, and when her brief span
Was passed, and the barbarian on her hurled,
Crushed to the dust her greatness had began;
Her cross of life, her banner she unfurled,
Inspired the hopeless soul, and humanised the world.

LVII

Lo! where yon column's circling ranks expanding
Round the vast portico their shadows fling,
Like the bared trunks of some huge forest standing
Beneath its mountain overshadowing;
So rears Earth's mightiest shrine of worshipping
Her giant front in the profound of heaven!
The Apostle's tomb, for whose great suffering
The keys of hell and paradise were given;
Enter! — far, far away be earthlier memories driven.

LVIII

Look up, behold the pride, the boast of Rome!
Orbed as the world, and floating as on air,
In dazzling lustre swells yon mighty dome,
Mirror of heaven, but heaven when she doth wear
All galaxied with stars her flashing hair;
Winged saints and hierarchs ascending shown,
Melt in beatitudes unfolding there,
Where in His central glory, sphered alone,
The Ineffable is felt behind his hidden throne.

LIX

The crowds within the Sistine halls are still:
Hark! how the thrilling choir informs the air;
The Atonement won from love meffable,
The prophet's lamentation and despair;
The sweat of blood, the agony of prayer,
The immortal with the mortal flesh at strife,
When strengthening Angels came the cross to bear;
The penance death, the prize eternal life;
Each note a breathing soul with one expression rife.

LX

There, the faint lights extinguished one by one,
As in that hour the Apostles fell from him,
When life immortal was or lost or won;
Hark how peals forth that conscious requiem!
The pictured prophets growing in the dim
Obscure, from downward, the last judgment day
Revealed along the walls; ye hear the hymn
Of the saved souls, and sainted voices say,
Awake! lo, heaven and earth thus scroll-like pass away.