Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock! - Lord Byron

Even gods must yield — religions take their turn:
’Twas Jove’s — ’tis Mahomet’s — and other creeds
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.

Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled — Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it doth defer — Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine
And temple more divinely desolate,
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate: — If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn?

The Dying Gladiator

I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand - his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low -
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him - he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not - his eyes
Were with his heart and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young-barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother - he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday -
All this rushed with his blood - Shall he expire
And unavenged? - Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!