LXXXVIII.
And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome![467] [25.H.]
She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart
The milk of conquest yet within the dome
Where, as a monument of antique art,
Thou standest:—Mother of the mighty heart,
Which the great Founder sucked from thy wild teat,
Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart,
And thy limbs black with lightning—dost thou yet
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?
LXXXIX.
Thou dost;—but all thy foster-babes are dead—
The men of iron; and the World hath reared
Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled
In imitation of the things[468] they feared,
And fought and conquered, and the same course steered,
At apish distance; but as yet none have,
Nor could, the same supremacy have neared,
Save one vain Man, who is not in the grave—
But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave—[469]
XC.
The fool of false dominion—and a kind
Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old
With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, [26.H.]
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,[470]
And an immortal instinct which redeemed
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold—
Alcides with the distaff now he seemed
At Cleopatra's feet,—and now himself he beamed,
XCI.
And came—and saw—and conquered![471] But the man
Who would have tamed his Eagles down to flee,
Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,[472]
Which he, in sooth, long led to Victory,
With a deaf heart which never seemed to be
A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
With but one weakest weakness—Vanity—[nt]
Coquettish in ambition—still he aimed—
And what? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?[nu]
XCII.
And would be all or nothing—nor could wait
For the sure grave to level him; few years
Had fixed him with the Cæsars in his fate
On whom we tread: For this the conqueror rears
The Arch of Triumph! and for this the tears
And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed,
An universal Deluge, which appears
Without an Ark for wretched Man's abode,
And ebbs but to reflow!—Renew thy rainbow, God![nv]