LXIX.

Stood ye not thus amidst the streets of Rome?

That Rome which witness’d, in her sceptred days,

So much of noble death? When shrine and dome,

Midst clouds of incense, rang with choral lays,

As the long triumph pass’d, with all its blaze

Of regal spoil, were ye not proudly borne,

O sovereign forms! concentring all the rays

Of the soul’s lightnings?—did ye not adorn

The pomp which earth stood still to gaze on, and to mourn?