Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/107

Rh readers must always, I apprehend, have inferred the contrary. By a lone wall a lonelier column rears A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days. 'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, And looks as with the wild bewilder'd gaze Of one to stone converted by amaze, Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands, Making a marvel that it not decays, When the coeval pride of human hands, Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.

And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name !— Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave Her youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claim Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would crave The life she lived in; but the judge was just,— And then she died on him she could not save. Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. Byron's note runs thus: "Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Caecina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago. It is thus: 'Julia Alpinula hic jaceo. Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of greater interest. These are the names and actions," etc.]