Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/279

 ROME.

��Tis sunset on the Palatine. A flood Of living glory wraps the Sabine hills, And o'er the rough and serrate Appenines Floats like a burning mantle. Purple mists Rise faintly o'er the grey and ivied tombs Of the Campagna, as sad memory steals Forth from the twilight of the heart, to hold Its mournful vigil o'er affection's dust. Was that thy camp, old Romulus, where creeps The clinging vine-flower round yon fallen fanes And mouldering columns ?

Lo ! thy clay-built huts,

And band of malcontents, with barbarous port, Up from the sea of buried ages rise, Darkening the scene. Methinks I see thee stand, Thou wolf-nursed monarch, o'er the human herd Supreme in savageness, yet strong to plant Barrier and bulwark, whence should burst a might And majesty by thy untutored soul Unmeasured, unconceived. As little dreams

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