Stop on the Appian Way,
In the Roman Campagna;
Stop at my tomb,
The tomb of Cecilia Metella.
To-day as you see it
Alaric saw it, ages ago,
When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,
Sat at the gates of Rome,
Reading his Runic shield.
Odin, thy curse remains!
Beneath these battlements
My bones...
1861
over the dumb campagna-sea,
Out in the offing through mist and rain,
Saint Peter’s Church heaves silently
Like a mighty ship in pain,
Facing the tempest with struggle and strain.
Motionless waifs of ruined towers,
Soundless breakers of desolate land!
The sullen surf of the mist devours
That mountain-range...
