But soon in me shall loneliness renew 650 Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old,

Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind;

All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 655
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil
In the hot throng, where we become the
spoil

Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil,

660

In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years

In fatal penitence, and in the blight
Of our own soul turn all our blood to

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,

But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;

And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:835 All heaven and earth are still: from the high host

Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,

All is concentered in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

But hath a part of being, and a sense 840 Of that which is of all Creator and Defence.

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow

From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and

now

The arena swims around him-he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. 1260

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away;

He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danubelay, There were his young barbarians all at play, 1265

There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,

Butchered to make a Roman holidayAll this rushed with his blood-Shall he expire

And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;

1270

And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,

And roared or murmured like a mountain stream

Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise

Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

1275

My voice sounds much-and fall the stars' faint rays

On the arena void-seats crushed-walls bowed

And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.

Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?

Alas! developed, opens the decay, 1284 When the colossal fabric's form is neared: It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all, years, man have reft away.

be our lot?

.

1590