I do remember me, that in my youth,	10
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	15
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bay’d beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars’ palace came
The owl’s long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song	20
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time—worn breach
Appear’d to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot. Where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst	25
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 gladiators’ bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!	30
While Caesar’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 soften’d down the hoar austerity	35
Of rugged desolation, and fill’d up,
As ’twere 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	40
With silent worship of the great of old,—
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.—
’Twas such a night!