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CXXXIX.

And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause, As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man. And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure.-Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

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CXL.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him-he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.

CXLI.

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-

All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire
And unavenged?-Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

CXLII.

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;

Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

My voice sounds much—and fall the stars' faint rays
On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd-

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Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass

And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?
Alas! developed, opens the decay,

When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

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u ike a mountain stream

Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;

Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

My voice sounds much-and fall the stars' faint rays
On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'd-

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A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass

Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass

And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?
Alas! developed, opens the decay,

When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

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