LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas! The trebly hundred triumphs !(1) and the day [free! That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was LXXXIII. Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, O'er prostrate Asia; thou, who with thy frown With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown— (1) Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs. He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers. LXXXIV. The dictatorial wreath (1),—couldst thou divine [hail'd! Her rushing wings-Oh! she who was Almighty LXXXV. Sylla was first of victors; but our own The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell; he Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne And famous through all ages! but beneath His day of double victory and death [breath. (2) Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his (1) Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atonement of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul. * (2) On the 3d of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar : a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. * "Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idées de la façon dont je vous vois agir. Je croyois que vous aviez de l'ambition, mais aucune amour pour la gloire : je voyois bien que votre âme étoit haute; mais je ne soupçonnois pas qu'elle fut grande."— Dialogues de Sylla et d'Eucrate. T LXXXVI. The third of the same moon whose former course Had all but crown'd him, on the selfsame day Deposed him gently from his throne of force, And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway, And all we deem delightful, and consume Our souls to compass through each arduous way Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb? Were they but so in man's,how different were his doom! LXXXVII. And thou, dread statue! yet existent in (1) Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, LXXXVIII. And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome (2) She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart The milk of conquest yet within the dome Where, as a monument of antique art, Thou standest:- Mother of the mighty heart, Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's etherial dart, And thy limbs black with lightning-dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? (1, 2) See" Historical Notes," Nos. XXIV. XXV. LXXXIX. Thou dost ;-but all thy foster-babes are dead- XC. The fool of false dominion- -and a kind XCI. And came and saw-and conquer'd! But the man Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, At what? can he avouch-or answer what he claim'd? (1) See "Historical Notes," at the end of this Canto, No. XXVL XCII. And would be all or nothing-nor could wait On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears Without an ark for wretched man's abode, XCIII. What from this barren being do we reap? Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, Mantles the earth with darkness, until right And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale Lest their own judgments should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. XCIV. And thus they plod in sluggish misery, To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage Within the same arena where they see Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. |