"What see you now? what solitary trace
"Is left of all that made ROME'S glory then?
"The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft
"Even of its name--and nothing now remains
"But the deep memory of that glory, left
"To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!
"But _shall_ this be?--our sun and sky the same,--
"Treading the very soil our fathers trod,--
"What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,
"What visitation hath there come from God
"To blast our strength and rot us into slaves,
"_Here_ on our great forefathers' glorious graves?
"It cannot be--rise up, ye Mighty Dead,--
"If we, the living, are too weak to crush
"These tyrant priests that o'er your empire tread,
"Till all but Romans at Rome's tameness blush!
"Happy, PALMYRA, in thy desert domes
"Where only date-trees sigh and serpents hiss;
"And thou whose pillars are but silent homes
"For the stork's brood, superb PERSEPOLIS!
"Thrice happy both, that your extinguisht race
"Have left no embers--no half-living trace--
"No slaves to crawl around the once proud spot,
"Till past renown in present shame's forgot.
"While ROME, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks,
"If lone and lifeless thro' a desert hurled,
"Would wear more true magnificence than decks
"The assembled thrones of all the existing world--
"ROME, ROME alone, is haunted, stained and curst,
"Thro' every spot her princely TIBER laves,
"By living human things--the deadliest, worst,
"This earth engenders--tyrants and their slaves!
"And we--oh shame!--we who have pondered o'er
"The patriot's lesson and the poet's lay;[2]
"Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore,
"Tracking our country's glories all the way--
"Even _we_ have tamely, basely kist the ground
"Before that Papal Power,--that Ghost of Her,
"The World's Imperial Mistress--sitting crowned
"And ghastly on her mouldering sepulchre![3]
"But this is past:--too long have lordly priests
"And priestly lords led us, with all our pride
"Withering about us--like devoted beasts,
"Dragged to the shrine, with faded garlands tied.
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