First Freedom, and then Glory—when that fails,
Wealth—Vice—Corruption,—Barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page,—'tis better written here,
Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed
All treasures, all delights, that Eye or Ear,
Heart, Soul could seek—Tongue ask—Away with words! draw near,
CIX.
Admire—exult—despise—laugh—weep,—for here
There is such matter for all feeling:—Man![1]
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,
Ages and Realms are crowded in this span,
This mountain, whose obliterated plan
The pyramid of Empires pinnacled,
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van[2]
Till the Sun's rays with added flame were filled!
Where are its golden roofs?[3] where those who dared to build?
- ↑ Oh, ho, ho, ho—thou creature of a Man.—[MS. M. erased.]
- ↑
And show of Glory's gewgaws in the van
And the Sun's rays with flames more dazzling filled.—[MS. M.] - ↑ [The "golden roofs" were those of Nero's Domus Aurea, which extended from the north-west corner of the Palatine to the Gardens of Mæcenas, on the Esquiline, spreading over the sites of the Temple of Vesta and Rome on the platform of the Velia, the Colosseum, and the Thermæ of Titus, as far as the Sette Sale. "In the fore court was the colossal statue of Nero. The pillars of the colonnade, which measured a thousand feet in length, stood three deep. All that was not lake, or wood, or vineyard, or pasture, was overlaid with plates of gold, picked out with gems and mother-of-pearl" (Suetonius, vi. 31; Tacitus, Ann., xv. 42).
