What voiceth thy bright waters? Oh Sea of the summer clime!
Thou mirror of life's history! thou orator sublime!
What sing thy laughing wavelets as they dance along thy shore?
What moan thy heaving surges, as they sway with sullen roar?
Thou tellest to the breezes soft, which fan thy breast of pride,
That pomp and glory of a world once nestled by thy side;
Thou singest, in the purling wave, quaint rhythms of romance,
Of witching queens and warriors bold, of siege and glistering lance;
Thou wailest, in sad monotone, o'er empires gone for aye;
Thou smilest in benign repose upon this freer day.
Alone on the crumbling ruins! bowed low his agèd head;
Life's wreck 'mid shattered monuments, sole mourners o'er the dead;
Meet emblem of capricious fate, which scorns decrees of man;
Meet site for an exile's musing on Treachery's subtle plan.
Great city of the salt sea wave, on Afric's burnished shore!
That gleaming wave which wailed the dirge of those it proudly bore
To battle in a vain defense, to sleep the sleep profound
Within no sculptured sepulchre, beneath no hallowed ground.
Great Carthage the magnificent! when Slaughter rung thy knell,
Even from thy victor's war-strained eyes, unwonted tear-drops fell.
A fugitive sat Marius; despondent and alone;
Well-nigh forgot of enemies, forsaken of his own.
Where now that voice of terror, those eyes of flashing light
Which awed the Cymbrian jailor, which urged his coward flight?
Where now that haughty form and mien which led the Roman bands
To smite Europa's barbarous hordes back from the classic lands?
Mute are the plaudits of the crowd, seared are the harvest sheaves;
Quenched the chimera light of flame, which gilt the laurel leaves;
Had vanished, as a taunting sprite, those dreams ambition nursed;
The very stones on which he sat were of the gods accursed.
Which is the happier? he who strives the higher heights to gain,
Or he who mingles in the crowd that throngs the nether plain?
Ask ye Ambition's tortured brain if vulgar hue and cry
The craving of the loftier mood doth fully satisfy:
Ask of keen Avarice if its hoard e'er soothed a sin-fraught breast,
Or purchased peace of mind, or charmed a conscience into rest.
I wot 'tis safer far to bide in calm contentment's vale,
And o'er the placid inland seas to peaceful moorings sail.
Even those whose largess, honest worth doth merit just renown
What are they save the shining mark for Envy to uncrown.
Doth muse Oh Marius! on that hour when blasts of martial horn
Across thy peasant heritage through haunts of toil were borne?
When thy young heart throbbed high to join that glittering array,
Which owned thee chief in valor's van through many an after day.
Dost storm Numantia's battlements, whence arrows showered as rain?
Dost stand in thickest of the fight on crimsoned fields of Spain?
Or sittest thou an honored guest, where flows the festive tide?
Thy plebeian birth no barrier, by Africanus' side?
Dost list that certain prophecy that should his race be run,
The mantle of his might should fall on thee, great Valor's son?
Raise up thy head, Oh Marius! look forth ayond the wave!
Yield not to dire despondency; ills conquer not the brave;
Think of thy former exile, then of that glorious hour
When suffrage of the multitude invested thee with power:
When Rome's patricians bent the knee around thy self-built throne,
And all the wills of every land succumbed unto thine own:
Though Envy forged the coward chains which dragged thy scepter down,
It may not wrest from memory thy record of renown;
Arise! reward of courage waits, the dismal night is o'er;
That sun is dawning which will flush thy Civic crown once more.
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