Julia Alpinula :: :: University of Virginia Library

That cruel question ask not now,
But gaze on the faint form reclining
Within yon pillared portico,
Desponding, pale, but unrepining.
The virgins round are all in tears,
And some in loud lament; but she—
Alas! the keenness of her fears
Stifles those drops of agony,

Leaving alone the sense of pain
Busy about her heart and brain.
Her mien, though marked by grief intense,
Betrays no hurried negligence;
The tangles of her auburn hair
Are braided with accustomed care;
And taste's pure fingers have imprest
The foldings of her mourning vest;
But yet her eye has lost a glow
Of that sweet fire which gladdened so,
And each long lash which shades the eye
Falls as a black pall awfully,
To shut out sunshine from the temple
Where joy exists not; her lips tremble
As if in agonies and fears
With what in her deep soul she hears.
Ye guardian Gods! her father doomed!
It was as though a trumpet sounded
Through the young heart reflection wounded,
For quickly then she reassumed
Her purpose, to affection sweet,
Too sweet for even dread to shun,
But all too venturous, all unmeet
For her. She, pale afflicted one!
Her veil smoothed from the ruffling wind,
The scattered ringlets thrown behind,

By those, her weeping sisters, tended,
The temple's marble steps descended.
She passes, in the public path,
The Circus and columnar bath;
The legendary Pillar, grey
With growing mosses of decay;
The Amphitheatre, the mount
Of pines above the Claudian fount,
Then treads the long Moratian way.
The awed spectators melt, and bless
Her filial love her loveliness;
Each had some grief and the kind tone
Which pitied hers, relieved his own.
The sullen warrior turned aside,
The woman in his eyes to hide;
The infant smiled through first alarms,
And stretched to her its little arms;
And beauty sighed as she passed by,
And felt a charm in every sigh.