ROME, 1874.

I STOOD upon the fallen and crumbling wall

Of Caesar's grand old palace, looking down

On desolate destruction all about,

The mighty relics of a mighty race

Now passed away forever, and I grew

Sad, as I thought that such a shapeless end

Attends all earthly grandeur. As my eye

Wandered along the ruined rampart's line,

It rested on a tree, the day before

Lifeless and dead as the gray piles about,

But now the balmy breath of new-born spring

Had waked it into being once again,

And the white blossoms covered o'er and hid

The shapeless skeleton of yesterday.

Will it be so with Rome? Will she awake

From her long sleep of ages, and once more

Stand proudly forth, the mistress of the world, -

Or is her life forever passed away?

STULTUS.