HE sky falls sad and sorrowful,
The tempest hangs o'er Rome,
Naught save the dropping rays of light,
Lift the Campagna's gloom;
ANOTHER VOICE.
![T](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Poems_Eckley_T.jpg/48px-Poems_Eckley_T.jpg)
The tempest hangs o'er Rome,
Naught save the dropping rays of light,
Lift the Campagna's gloom;
Down dropping rays of sunny light,
Like stairways from the skies,
Where thought may climb the misty steps,
And hope may strive to rise.
Like stairways from the skies,
Where thought may climb the misty steps,
And hope may strive to rise.
Grim ruins start, and dot the scene,
A lonely watch-tower glooms,
In company with withered shrubs,
Dead in a land of tombs.
A lonely watch-tower glooms,
In company with withered shrubs,
Dead in a land of tombs.
Mark the great spectral aqueduct
Tramp on like solemn fate,
A broken union—severed links
Of what was once so great.
Tramp on like solemn fate,
A broken union—severed links
Of what was once so great.
But the soft sky stoops down to touch,
And kiss the weeds that hide
Each ruined gap, where the wind has sung,
But oftener still has sighed.
And kiss the weeds that hide
Each ruined gap, where the wind has sung,
But oftener still has sighed.
Aye! ruins draped in shadows drear,
Like ghosts of evil thought,
Which haunt the fields of memory,
And come when least they're sought.
Like ghosts of evil thought,
Which haunt the fields of memory,
And come when least they're sought.
But 'tis not always drear and sad,
Nor always dim, the way;
Oft there's a rent where God looks down
On this world's evening grey.
Nor always dim, the way;
Oft there's a rent where God looks down
On this world's evening grey.