ROMAN LIFE IN EARLY PERIOD OF DECLINE .
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And yet no vow, my love, from thee, My longing ear has ever heard. No cheering word of love to me, Nor promise-not a single word. Oh must I, love, thus from thy side, With many doubts and fears depart ; When all my hopes in thee reside, Oh dearest angel of my heart? Forbid it, Oh my dearest one; Just speak one word of sacred love ! Oh say thy heart my pleas have won ! And for no other will it move. Oh then with joy from thee I'll go, My heart be happy and so glad, And not one streak of sorrow know, Nor aught therein to make me sad.
L.
Roman Life in the Earlv Period of the Decline. is painful at any time to contemplate declining greatness, IT whether of nation or individual; whether it be military, civil, or .moral. But where is the student that is not moved with a peculiar feeling of regret as he :fixes his gaze on the fading outlines of the greatness that once was Rome's? Classical Home, with her life and history, moves before the eye of the average student in colors almost as vivid as do the landscape scenes of his boyhood days. Her civilization has so stamped itself upon his life that he feels it to be a part of his own being; and to him Rome still lives. And though she is no more, he still feels within himself the stirring of a Roman patriotism. In the period of Roman history which we a;e now to consider, Rome had already passed the zenith of her glory and had entered upon a sure decline. True, Rome was still the world, but she was already trembling from internal dissension
