Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JULIA ALPINULA, by GEORGE GORDON BYRON


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JULIA ALPINULA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
Last Line: And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust.
Alternate Author Name(s): Byron, Lord; Byron, 6th Baron
Subject(s): Avenches, Switzerland


BY a lone wall a lonelier column rears
A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days;
'T is the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild bewildered gaze
Of one to stone converted by amaze,
Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands
Making a marvel that it not decays,
When the coeval pride of human hands,
Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands.

And there -- O, sweet and sacred be the name! --
Julia -- the daughter, the devoted -- gave
Her youth to heaven; her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave
The life she lived in; but the judge was just,
And then she died on him she could not save.
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust.





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