Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/440

398 Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,

Which he, in sooth, long led to Victory,

With a deaf heart which never seemed to be

A listener to itself, was strangely framed;

With but one weakest weakness—Vanity—

Coquettish in ambition—still he aimed—

And what? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?

XCII.

And would be all or nothing—nor could wait

For the sure grave to level him; few years

Had fixed him with the Cæsars in his fate

On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears

The Arch of Triumph! and for this the tears

And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,

An universal Deluge, which appears

Without an Ark for wretched Man's abode,

And ebbs but to reflow!—Renew thy rainbow, God!