"I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering,--upon such a night, I stood within the Coliseum's wall, Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Cæsar's palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song Began and died upon the gentle wind:-- Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through levell'd battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths; Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;-- But the gladiator's bloody circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection! While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old:-- The dead but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns." _Manfred._ "Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume The long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume "Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Under the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower." _Childe Harold._