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The Coliseum | Poems by Edgar Allan Poe · Ririro.com - Poetry

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  Speaker 1: Type of the antique Rome rich reliquary of lofty contemplation,
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  Speaker 1: left to time by buried sentries of pomp and power,
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  Speaker 1: at length, at length, after so many days of weary
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  Speaker 1: pilgrimage and burning thirst, thirst for the springs of lore
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  Speaker 1: that in thee lie, I kneel an altered and an
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  Speaker 1: humble man amid thy shadows, And so drink within my
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  Speaker 1: very soul by grandeur, gloom and glory, vastness and age,
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  Speaker 1: and memories of eld silence and desolation and dim night.
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  Speaker 1: I feel ye now, I fee ye in your strength.
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  Speaker 1: O spells more sure than ere Judean king taught in
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  Speaker 1: the gardens of Gssemine. O charms more potent than the
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  Speaker 1: rapt Chaldee ever drew down from out the quiet stars.
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  Speaker 1: Here where a hero fell, a column falls, Here where
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  Speaker 1: the mimic eagle glared in gold. A midnight vigil holds
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  Speaker 1: the swarthy bat. Here where the Dames of Rome, their
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  Speaker 1: gilded hair waved to the wind, now wave the reed
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  Speaker 1: and thistle here were on golden throne. The monarch lawed
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  Speaker 1: glides specterlike unto his marble home, lit by the wan light,
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  Speaker 1: wan light of the horned moon, the swift and silent
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  Speaker 1: lizard of the stones. But stay these walls, these ivy
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  Speaker 1: glad arcades, these moldering plints, these sad and blackened shafts,
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  Speaker 1: these vague entablatures, His crumbling frieze, these shattered cornices, this wreck,
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  Speaker 1: this ruin, these stones, alas these gray stones are they all?
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  Speaker 1: All of the fame and the colossal left by the
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  Speaker 1: gross of hours do fade in me. Not all the
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  Speaker 1: echoes answer me. Not all prophetic sounds and loud arise
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  Speaker 1: forever from us, and from all ruin unto the wise,
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  Speaker 1: as melody, from Memnon to the sun. We rule the
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  Speaker 1: hearts of mightiest men. We rule with a despotic sway,
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  Speaker 1: all giant minds. We are not impotent. We pallid stones.
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  Speaker 1: Not all our power is gone, not all our fame,
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  Speaker 1: not all the magic of our high renown, Not all
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  Speaker 1: the wonder that encircles us, Not all the mysteries that
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  Speaker 1: in us lie, not all the memories that hang upon
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  Speaker 1: and cling around about us, as a garment, clothing us
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  Speaker 1: in a robe of more than glory.