XLVI.

But ye! that beam’d on Fate’s tremendous night, When the storm burst o’er golden Babylon; And ye, that sparkled with your wonted light O’er burning Salem, by the Roman won; And ye, that calmly view’d the slaughter done In Rome’s own streets, when Alaric’s trumpet-blast Rang through the Capitol: bright spheres! roll on! _Still_ bright, though empires fall; and bid man cast His humbled eyes to earth, and commune with the past.