 | Julia Alpinula |  |
XXIII.
Such prescience of misfortune fellOn Julia in her temple cell.
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She knew the hour of trial nigh,
Feared, wavered, trembled, hoped, but still
Terror rose potent over will,
And hope grew like that burning streak,
The death-spot on Consumption's cheek;
Till certainty of woe delayed
Threw o'er her heart its icy shade,
And on her face the marble air
Of mute, but palpable despair,
Calm of more terrible potent
Than Frenzy's loud abandonment.
The one is as a storm from heaven
O'er lake Moratium's waves and pines,
When once with them the gust has striven,
It sinks—the lake in silver shines,
And heaven again on wave and grove
Looks forth in gentleness and love:
But that is like the Asphaltine lake,
The slumber of whose waveless glass
No storm can move, no thunder shake,
It lies a deep, unsparkling mass,
In its eternity of rest,
Dark, cheerless, barren, and unblest.
Yes! though a little longer spared
The stroke which Destiny prepared,
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Which wrought her country's overthrow,
Thy heights, Vocetius, witness bore
The blow was struck, the struggle o'er.
Upon that mountain's mossy head,
A tragic spectacle was spread;
In front by stern Cecina pressed,
The Rhetian phalanx in their rear,
They struck, they fell, and many a breast
Resigned its high ambition here.
| Julia Alpinula | |