| |
| ON wall-girt Sardis weary day hath shed | |
| The golden blaze of his expiring beam; | |
| And ring her paven walks beneath the tread | |
| Of guards that near the hour of battle deem,— | |
| Whose brazen helmets in the starlight gleam; | 5 |
| From tented lines no murmur loud ascends, | |
| For martial thousands of the battle dream | |
| On which the fate of bleeding Rome depends | |
| When blushing dawn awakes, and night’s dark curtain rends. | |
| |
| Though hushed war’s couchant tigers in their lair, | 10 |
| The tranquil time to one brings not repose,— | |
| A voice was whispering to his soul, “Despair! | |
| The gods will give the triumph to thy foes.” | |
| Can sleep, with leaden hand, our eyelids close | |
| When throng distempered fancies and depart, | 15 |
| And thought a shadow on the future throws? | |
| When shapes unearthly into being start, | |
| And, like a snake, Remorse uncoils within the heart? | |
| |
| At midnight deep when bards avow that tombs | |
| Are by their cold inhabitants forsaken, | 20 |
| The Roman chief his wasted lamp relumes, | |
| And calmly reads by mortal woe unshaken: | |
| His iron frame of rest had not partaken, | |
| And doubt—dark enemy of slumber—fills | |
| A breast where fear no trembling chord could waken, | 25 |
| And on his ear an awful voice yet thrills, | |
| That rose, when Cæsar fell, from Rome’s old Seven Hills. | |
| |
| A sound,—“that earth owns not,”—he hears, and starts, | |
| And grasps the handle of his weapon tried; | |
| Then, while the rustling tent-cloth slowly parts, | 30 |
| A figure enters and stands by his side: | |
| There was an air of majesty and pride | |
| In the bold bearing of that spectre pale,— | |
| The crimson on its robe was still undried, | |
| And dagger-wounds, that tell a bloody tale | 35 |
| Beyond the power of words, the opening folds unveil. | |
| |
| With fearful meaning towers the phantom grim, | |
| On Brutus fixing its cold, beamless eye; | |
| The face, though that of Julius, seems to him | |
| Formed from the moonlight of a misty sky: | 40 |
| The birds of night, affrighted, flutter by, | |
| And a wild sound upon the shuddering air | |
| Creeps as if earth were breathing out a sigh, | |
| And the fast-waning lamp, as if aware | |
| Some awful shade was nigh, emits a ghostly glare. | 45 |
| |
| Stern Brutus quails not, though his woe-worn cheeks | |
| Blanch with emotion, and in tone full loud | |
| Thus to the ghastly apparition speaks,— | |
| “Why stand before me in that gory shroud, | |
| Unwelcome guest! thy purpose unavowed; | 50 |
| Art thou the shaping of my wildered brain?” | |
| The spectre answered, with a gesture proud, | |
| In hollow accents,—“We will meet again | |
| When the best blood of Rome smokes on Philippi’s plain.” | |
| |
