How, with these memories gathering in his breast, Of all the labors that denied him rest— Of all the triumphs that his country bore To heights of fame she had not won before— Broods he, the exile from his state and home, On what awaits thee and himself, O Rome! Of what thy hate deserves, and his decrees, Whom thou hast brought unwilling to his knees. No sad submission yields he to his fate, So long as solace comes to him from hate, Or hope from vengeance. In his eyes, ye trace No single look to recompense disgrace; With no ambition checked, no passion hushed, No pride o’erthrown, no fond delusion crushed; With every fire alive that ever swayed, His soul as lordly as when most obeyed, He broods o’er wrongs, forgetful of his own, And from his heart hears vengeance cry alone. Fixed on the ruins round him, his dread eye Glances, as if fastened on his enemy; His hand is on the fragment of a shrine That Hate may henceforth deem a thing divine: Grasped firmly—could the fingers but declare How dread the oath the soul was heard to swear! The awful purpose nursed within, denies Speech to the lips, but lightens up the eyes, Informs each muscle with the deadliest will, But till the murderous moment, bids “be still!” Come read, ye ministers of Fate, the lore That fills the dark soul of the fiend ye bore; Reveal the secret purpose that inspires That deadly mood, and kindles all its fires; Scan the dread meaning in that viperous glance Fixed on those ruins in intensest trance, That nothing speaks to that it still surveys, And looks within alone with meaning gaze; Unclose that lip, that rigidly compressed, Stops the free rush of feeling from the breast; And on that brow, with seven deep furrows bound, Write the full record of his thought profound. What future scene beneath that piercing eye Depicts the carnage and the victory; The flashing steel—the shaft in fury sped— The shrieking victim, and the trampled dead: Say, what wild sounds have spelled that eager ear, That stretches wide, the grateful strain to hear; How many thousands perish in that cry That fills his bloody sense with melody; What pleading voices, stifling as they swell, Declare the vengeance gratified too well? What lordly neck, beneath that iron tread, Strangled in utterance, leaves the prayer unsaid? What horrid scene of triumph and of hate, Do ye discover to this man of Fate, Which, while his Fortune mocks the hope he bears, Consoles his Past, and still his Future cheers? He hath no speech, save in the ruins round; But there’s a language, born without a sound, A voice whose thunders, though unuttered, fly From the red lightnings of the deep-set eye; There passion speaks of hate that cannot spare, Still tearing those who taught him how to tear; One dream alone delighting his desire— The dream that finds the fuel for his fire; Let fancy shape the language for his mood, And speak the purpose burning in his blood. ——