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THE NURSE OF NERO.
When he, whose name for thousand years hath been
But one word more for Crime and Cruelty,
Beheld his life and power, both long abused,
Draw near their end together—on each side
Armies, and provinces, and kings revolting,
A world against him—and the bitter draught,
Which he to other lips so oft had held,
Commended, with all justice, to his own—
When, through the streets of million-peopled Rome,
From door to door he went, from house to house,
And none would shelter him —his aged nurse,
(For Nero's self was suckled, those fierce lips
Had drained sweet fountains—not from Agrippina,)
She, who had lulled those ominous slumbers, strove
To give him comfort—all might yet be well—
Others had been in greater straits than he.
But one word more for Crime and Cruelty,
Beheld his life and power, both long abused,
Draw near their end together—on each side
Armies, and provinces, and kings revolting,
A world against him—and the bitter draught,
Which he to other lips so oft had held,
Commended, with all justice, to his own—
When, through the streets of million-peopled Rome,
From door to door he went, from house to house,
And none would shelter him —his aged nurse,
(For Nero's self was suckled, those fierce lips
Had drained sweet fountains—not from Agrippina,)
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To give him comfort—all might yet be well—
Others had been in greater straits than he.
And when at last Death clutched him—meeter prey
Those lank jaws never closed on—and dislodged
From that polluted frame the hellish sprite
That long had harbored there—when, scorpion-like,
Ringed round with foes and hate, he sought his end
With slow, unwilling hand
—and grieving sore—
Less for his kingdom than his fiddlestick —
Expired, (two daggers planted in his throat,
And his eyes starting from his head—a terror!)
And the foul corpse was hurried under-ground—
Hers may have been the hand, the withered hand,
That all unknown “long after decked his grave
With spring and summer flowers.”
Those lank jaws never closed on—and dislodged
From that polluted frame the hellish sprite
That long had harbored there—when, scorpion-like,
Ringed round with foes and hate, he sought his end
With slow, unwilling hand
Comparisons are proverbially odious! (would that Plutarch had thought so!) but we cannot refrain from remarking some singular coincidences in the lives of two of the worst of men. “Quam vellem nescire literas!”—said the grandson of the high-souled Germanicus, when the first death-warrant was presented to him. (Cortes said the same.) Robespierre, the virtuous, the incorruptible, forsakes the chair of office rather than be accessary to the shedding of blood. In their last hours the resemblance becomes yet closer. Each, when all was over, attempted suicide, but so clumsily and unskilfully, that others were compelled to finish what their trembling hands had failed to accomplish.
Less for his kingdom than his fiddlestick —
Expired, (two daggers planted in his throat,
And his eyes starting from his head—a terror!)
And the foul corpse was hurried under-ground—
Hers may have been the hand, the withered hand,
That all unknown “long after decked his grave
With spring and summer flowers.”
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