---

Felicia Dorothea Hemans - The Statue Of The Dying Gladiator
Work rating: Low

COMMANDING pow`r! whose hand with plastic art
	Bids the rude stone to grace and being start;
	Swell to the waving line the polish`d form,
	And only want Promethean fire to warm ;—
	Sculpture, exult! thy triumph proudly see,
	The Roman slave immortalized by thee!
	No suppliant sighs, no terrors round him wait,
	But vanquish`d valor soars above his fate!
	In that fix`d eye still proud defiance low`rs,
	In that stern look indignant grandeur tow`rs!
	He sees e`en death, with javelin barb`d in pain,
	A foe but worthy of sublime disdain! 
	Too firm, too lofty, for one parting tear,
	A quiv`ring pulse, a struggle, or a fear!

	Oh! fire of soul! by servitude disgrac`d,
	Perverted courage! energy debas`d!
	Lost Rome! thy slave, expiring in the dust,
	Tow`rs far above Patrician rank, august!
	While that proud rank, insatiate, could survey
	Pageants that stain`d with blood each festal day!

	Oh! had that arm, which grac`d thy deathful show,
	With many a daring feat and nervous blow,
	Wav`d the keen sword and rear`d the patriot-shield,
	Firm in thy cause, on Glory`s laureate field;
	Then, like the marble form, from age to age,
	His name had liv`d in history`s brightest page; 
	While death had but secur`d the victor`s crown,
	And seal`d the suffrage of deserv`d renown!
	That gen`rous pride, that spirit unsubdu`d,
	That soul, with honor`s high-wrought sense imbu`d,
	Had shone, recorded in the song of fame,
	A beam, as now, a blemish, on thy name! 

	Yet here, so well has art majestic wrought,
	Sublimed expression, and ennobled thought;
	A dying Hero we behold, alone, 
	And Mind`s bright grandeur animates the stone! 
	`Tis not th` Arena`s venal champion bleeds,
	No! `tis some warrior, fam`d for matchless deeds!
	Admiring rapture kindles into flame,
	Nature and art the palm divided claim!
	Nature (exulting in her spirit`s pow`r,
	To rise victorious in the dreaded hour,)
	Triumphs, that death and all his shadowy train,
	Assail a mortal`s constancy—in vain! 
	And Art, rejoicing in the work sublime,
	Unhurt by all the sacrilege of time,
	Smiles o`er the marble, her divine control
	Moulded to symmetry, and fir`d with soul!
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.