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THE PILLAR OF TRAJAN

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Memorial Pillar! 'mid the wrecks of Time Preserve thy charge with confidence sublimeThe exultations, pomps, and cares of Rome, Whence half the breathing world received its doom; Things that recoil from language; that, if shown By apter pencil, from the light had flown.

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A Pontiff, Trajan here the Gods implores,
There greets an Embassy from Indian shores;
Lo! he harangues his cohorts-there the storm
Of battle meets him in authentic form!
Unharnessed, naked, troops of Moorish horse
Sweep to the charge; more high, the Dacian force,
To hoof and finger mailed ; †-—yet, high or low,
None bleed, and none lie prostrate but the foe; ‡
In every Roman, through all turns of fate,

Is Roman dignity inviolate;

Spirit in him pre-eminent, who guides, S
Supports, adorns, and over all presides;
Distinguished only by inherent state

From honoured Instruments that round him wait; ||
Rise as he may, his grandeur scorns the test

Of outward symbol, nor will deign to rest

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* "In detailing the two wars, this column sets each nation in contrast: here the Moorish horse, all naked and unharnessed " (Forsyth's Remarks, etc., p. 251.)-ED.

+ See Forsyth.-W. W. 1827.

"There the Taranatians, in complete mail down to the fingers and the hoofs. It exhibits without embellishment all the tactics of that age, and forms grand commentary on Vegetius and Frontinus." (Remarks, etc., p. 252.)-ĚD.

"How unlike the modern relievos, where dress appears in all its distinctions, and prostration in all its angles! none kneel here but priests and captives; no Roman appears in a fallen state: none are wounded or slain but the foe.

"No monument gives the complete and real costume of its kind so correctly as this column. On this column we can see parts of the subarmalia; we can see real drawers falling down to the officers' legs; and some figures have focalia, like invalids, round the neck." (Remarks, etc., p. 251-2.)-ED.

This column is an immense field of antiquities, where the emperor appears in a hundred different points, as sovereign, as general, as priest." (Remarks, etc., p. 251.)-ED.

"His dignity he derives from himself or his duties; not from the trappings of power, for he is dressed like any of his officers, not from the debasement of others, for the Romans stand bold and erect before him." (Remarks, etc., p. 251.)-ED.

On aught by which another is deprest.
—Alas! that One thus disciplined could toil
To enslave whole nations on their native soil;
So emulous of Macedonian fame,

That, when his age was measured with his aim,
He drooped, 'mid else unclouded victories,
And turned his eagles back with deep-drawn sighs.
O weakness of the Great! O folly of the Wise !

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Where now the haughty Empire that was spread 65 With such fond hope? her very speech is dead ; Yet glorious Art the power of Time defies, And Trajan still, through various enterprise, Mounts, in this fine illusion, toward the skies: Still are we present with the imperial Chief, Nor cease to gaze upon the bold Relief Till Rome, to silent marble unconfined, Becomes with all her years a vision of the Mind.

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Trajan's Column was set up by the Senate and people of Rome, in honour of the Emperor, about A.D. 114. It is one of the most remarkable pillars in the world; and still stands, little injured by time, in the centre of the Forum Trajanum (now a ruin); its height-132 feet-marking the height of the earth removed when the Forum was made. On the pedestal basreliefs were carved in series showing the arms and armour of the Romans; and round the shaft of the column similar reliefs, exhibiting pictorially the whole story of the Decian campaign of the Emperor. These are of great value as illustrating the history of the period, the costume of the Roman soldiers and the barbarians. A colossal statue of Trajan crowned the column; and, when it fell, Pope Sixtus V. replaced it by a figure of St. Peter. It is referred to by Pausanias (v. 12. 6), and by all the ancient topographers. See a minute account of it, with excellent illustrations, in Hertzberg's Geschichte des Römischen Kaiserreiches, pp. 330-345 (Berlin: 1880); also Müller's Denkmäler der alten Kunst, p. 51. The book, however, from which Wordsworth gained his information of this pillar was evidently Joseph Forsyth's Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters, during an Excursion in Italy in 1802-3 (London: 1813). It is thus that Dean Merivale speaks of it :—

THE CONTRAST

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"Amid this profusion of splendour" (i.e. in the Forum Trajanum) "the great object to which the eye was principally directed was the column, which rose majestically in the centre of the forum to the height of 126 feet, sculptured from the base of the shaft to the summit with the story of the Decian wars, shining in every volute and moulding, with gold and pigments, and crowned with the colossal effigy of the august conqueror. . . . The proportions of the Trajan column are peculiarly graceful; the compact masses of stone, nineteen in number, of which the whole shaft is composed, may lead us to admire the skill employed in its construction; but the most interesting feature of this historic monument is the spiral band of figures which throughout enriches it. To the subjects of Trajan himself, this record of his exploits in bold relief must have given a vivid and sufficient idea of the people, the places, and the actions indicated; even to us, after so many centuries, they furnish a correct type of the arms, the arts, and the costume both of the Romans and barbarians which we should vainly seek for elsewhere. The Trajan column forms a notable chapter in the pictorial history of Rome." (History of the Romans under the Empire, vol. viii. pp. 46, 47.)

In the Fenwick note, Wordsworth mentions that, what gave rise to this poem was, his observing in the newspapers that "the Pillar of Trajan" was prescribed as a subject for a prize poem at Oxford. This determines the date of composition. The Pillar of Trajan was the Newdigate prize poem, won by W. W. Tireman, Wadham Coll., in 1826. We may therefore assume that the subject was proposed about the summer of 1825.-ED.

THE CONTRAST

THE PARROT AND THE WREN 1

Composed 1825.-Published 1827

[The Parrot belonged to Mrs. Luff while living at Fox-Ghyll. The Wren was one that haunted for many years the summerhouse between the two terraces at Rydal Mount.-I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Fancy."-ED.

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1832.

THE CONTRAST.

1827.

I

WITHIN her gilded cage confined,

I saw a dazzling Belle,

A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is NON-PAREIL.

Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature's skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curvèd bill.

Her plumry mantle's living hues
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendour that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.

And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice

Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.

But, exiled from Australian bowers,
And singleness her lot,

She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note.

No more of pity for regrets

With which she may have striven:
Now but in wantonness she frets,

Or spite, if cause be given;

Arch, volatile, a sportive bird

By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard

And pleased to be admired!

[blocks in formation]

II

THIS MOSS-LINED shed, green, soft, and dry, Harbours a self-contented Wren,

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TO A SKY-LARK

Not shunning man's abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken.

Strange places, coverts unendeared,

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She never tried; the very nest

In which this Child of Spring was reared,

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Is warmed, thro' winter, by her feathery breast.

To the bleak winds she sometimes gives

A slender unexpected strain;

Proof that the hermitess still lives,

Though she appear not, and be sought in vain.

Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon,
If called to choose between the favoured pair,
Which would you be,-the bird of the saloon,
By lady-fingers tended with nice care,
Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed,

Or Nature's DARKLING of this mossy shed?

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The "moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry," still remains at Rydal Mount, as it was in the poet's time.-ED.

TO A SKY-LARK

Composed 1825.-Published 1827

[Written at Rydal Mount, where there are no skylarks, but the Poet is everywhere.-I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—ED.

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?

1 1836.

That tells

1827.

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