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POEMS.
With his bare arms, the strong athleta where?
All have departed from this once gay haunt
Of noisy crowds, and silence holds the air.
Yet, on this spot, Time gives us to behold
A spectacle as stern as those of old.
As dreamily I gaze, there seem to rise,
From all the mighty ruin, wailing cries.
III.
The terrible in war, the pride of Spain,
Trajan, his country's father, here was born;
Good, fortunate, triumphant, to whose reign
Submitted the far regions, where the morn
Rose from her cradle, and the shore whose steeps
O'erlooked the conquered Gaditanian deeps.
Of mighty Adrian here,
Of Theodosius, saint,
Of Silius, Virgil's peer,
Were rocked the cradles, rich with gold, and quaint
All have departed from this once gay haunt
Of noisy crowds, and silence holds the air.
Yet, on this spot, Time gives us to behold
A spectacle as stern as those of old.
As dreamily I gaze, there seem to rise,
From all the mighty ruin, wailing cries.
III.
The terrible in war, the pride of Spain,
Trajan, his country's father, here was born;
Good, fortunate, triumphant, to whose reign
Submitted the far regions, where the morn
Rose from her cradle, and the shore whose steeps
O'erlooked the conquered Gaditanian deeps.
Of mighty Adrian here,
Of Theodosius, saint,
Of Silius, Virgil's peer,
Were rocked the cradles, rich with gold, and quaint