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ALARIC IN ITALY.
Heard ye the Gothic trumpet's blast?
The march of hosts, as Alaric pass'd?
His steps have track'd that glorious clime,
The birth-place of heroic time;
But he, in northern deserts bred,
Spared not the living for the dead,1[1]
Nor heard the voice, whose pleading cries
From temple and from tomb arise.
He pass'd—the light of burning fanes
Hath been his torch o'er Grecian plains;
And woke they not—the brave, the free,
To guard their own Thermopylæ?
And left they not their silent dwelling,
When Scythia's note of war was swelling?
No! where the bold Three Hundred slept,
Sad freedom battled not—but wept!
