X.

  Then waited not the murderer for the night,
  But smote his brother down in the bright day,
  And he who felt the wrong, and had the might,
  His own avenger, girt himself to slay;
  Beside the path the unburied carcass lay;
  The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen,
  Fled, while the robber swept his flock away,
  And slew his babes.  The sick, untended then,
Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men.

XI.

  But misery brought in love—­in passion’s strife
  Man gave his heart to mercy, pleading long,
  And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life;
  The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong,
  Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew strong. 
  States rose, and, in the shadow of their might,
  The timid rested.  To the reverent throng,
  Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white,
Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right;

XII.

  Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed
  On men the yoke that man should never bear,
  And drove them forth to battle.  Lo! unveiled
  The scene of those stern ages!  What is there! 
  A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air
  Moans with the crimson surges that entomb
  Cities and bannered armies; forms that wear
  The kingly circlet rise, amid the gloom,
O’er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed in its womb.

XIII.

  Those ages have no memory—­but they left
  A record in the desert—­columns strown
  On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft,
  Heaped like a host in battle overthrown;
  Vast ruins, where the mountain’s ribs of stone
  Were hewn into a city; streets that spread
  In the dark earth, where never breath has blown
  Of heaven’s sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread
The long and perilous ways—­the Cities of the Dead: 

XIV.

  And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up-piled—­
  They perished—­but the eternal tombs remain—­
  And the black precipice, abrupt and wild,
  Pierced by long toil and hollowed to a fane;—­
  Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain
  The everlasting arches, dark and wide,
  Like the night-heaven, when clouds are black with rain. 
  But idly skill was tasked, and strength was plied,
All was the work of slaves to swell a despot’s pride.

XV.

  And Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign
  O’er those who cower to take a tyrant’s yoke;
  She left the down-trod nations in disdain,
  And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke,
  New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke
  Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands: 
  As rocks are shivered in the thunder-stroke. 
  And lo! in full-grown strength, an empire stands
Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the lands.