That solemn pause is o’er--the youth hath given One glance of parting love to earth and heaven: The sun rejoices in th’ unclouded sky, Life all around him glows--and he must die? Yet midst his people, undismay’d, he throws The gage of vengeance for a thousand woes; Vengeance that, like their own volcano’s fire, May sleep suppress’d a while--but not expire. One softer image rises o’er his breast, One fond regret, and all shall be at rest! “Alas, for thee, my mother! who shall bear To thy sad heart the tidings of despair, When thy lost child is gone?”--that thought can thrill His soul with pangs one moment more shall still. The lifted axe is glittering in the sun-- It falls--the race of Conradin is run! Yet, from the blood which flows that shore to stain, A voice shall cry to heaven--and not in vain! Gaze thou, triumphant from thy gorgeous throne, In proud supremacy of guilt alone, Charles of Anjou!--but that dread voice shall be A fearful summoner e’en yet to thee! The scene of death is closed--the throngs depart, A deep stem lesson graved on every heart. No pomp, no funeral rites, no streaming eyes, High-minded boy! may grace thine obsequies. O vainly royal and beloved! thy grave, Unsanctified, is bathed by ocean’s wave; Mark’d by no stone, a rude, neglected spot, Unhonour’d, unadorn’d--but _unforgot_; For thy deep wrongs in tameless hearts shall live, Now mutely suffering--never to forgive! The sunset fades from purple heavens away-- A bark hath anchor’d in the unruffled bay: Thence on the beach descends a female form,[135] Her mien with hope and tearful transport warm; But life hath left sad traces on her cheek, And her soft eyes a chasten’d heart bespeak, Inured to woes--yet what were all the past! _She_ sank not feebly ’neath affliction’s blast, While one bright hope remain’d--who now shall tell Th’ uncrown’d, the widow’d, how her loved one fell? To clasp her child, to ransom and to save, The mother came--and she hath found his grave! And by that grave, transfix’d in speechless grief, Whose deathlike trance denies a tear’s relief, Awhile she kneels--till roused at length to know, To feel the might, the fulness of her woe, On the still air a voice of anguish wild, A mother’s cry is heard--“My Conradin! my child!” [130] The urn supposed to have contained the ashes of Virgil has long since been lost. [131] Many Romans of exalted rank were formerly banished to some of the small islands in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Italy. Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was confined many years in the isle of Pandataria, and her daughter Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus, afterwards died in exile on the same desolate spot.