Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/237

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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 The truant boy, who to the teeming earth Casts the light acorn, of the forest's pomp, Which springing from that noteless germ, shall rear Its banner to the skies, when he must sleep A noteless atom. Hark! the owlet's cry That, like a muttering sybil, makes her cell 'Mid Nero's house of gold, with clustering bats,