Part 8 (1/2)

Wilt thou for fas.h.i.+on make thy Past forlorn?

Waste precious substance upon useless s.h.i.+ps?

Transport to Africa thine eldest born, And let gaunt hunger blanch thy peasants' lips?

Make poorly paid officials banded knaves?

Drive starving sons by thousands from thy sh.o.r.e, Or let them rot in Abyssinian graves, And hide the cancer festering at thy core?

If so, 'tis certain thou must dearly pay For playing thus the war-lord's pompous part, And thou shalt feel at no far-distant day The people's dagger driven through thy heart.

Fain would I find some peaceful Pagan shrine Unspoiled as yet by vandals of to-day, Around whose shafts the sweet, wild roses twine, And on whose marble walls the sunbeams play;

There would I dream of days when life was sweet With poetry, art, and myths devoid of dread, When all the G.o.ds in harmony could meet, And no eternal torment vexed the dead.

Our vaunted age is one of feverish haste, Of racial hatred and of loathsome cant, Of gross corruption and of tawdry taste, Of monster fortunes, with a world in want.

I am not of it, and I will not be!

Its social strife and slavery I despise; Gone is its sh.o.r.e; I sail the open sea O'er tranquil waters and 'neath cloudless skies!

ON THE PALATINE

I tread the vast deserted stage Whereon the Caesars lived and died; The relics of Rome's golden age Lie strewn about me far and wide, Mementoes of an empire's pride, The homes of men once deified.

What are they now? Stupendous piles Of mouldering corridors and walls, On which alike the suns.h.i.+ne smiles And cold the rain of winter falls; A wilderness of roofless halls Whose tragic history appalls!

Below me, like an opened grave, The Forum's excavations lie, Where column, arch and architrave In solemn grandeur greet the eye, Still guarding 'neath Italia's sky The glory that can never die.

And here, above me and around, In part still shrouded by the soil, A stony chaos strews the ground, Where patient students delve and toil To bring to light Time's buried spoil, And History's tangled threads uncoil.

Halt! where thou standest Rome was born!

These stones by Romulus were placed, When, on that far-off April morn, Two snow-white bulls the furrow traced For Rome's first wall, which, firmly based, Two thousand years have not effaced.

From these rude blocks how vast the bound To that huge, labyrinthine ma.s.s Through which the secret pathways wound, Where emperors, if alarmed, could pa.s.s; Yet even there could find, alas!

The poignard or the poisoned gla.s.s.

What ghastly crimes these rooms recall!

Here Nero watched his brother drain The fatal draught, then lifeless fall; Here, too, Caligula was slain, When, shrieking, with disordered brain, He pleaded for his life in vain.

At every turn some pallid ghost With haggard features seems to rise To join the long-drawn, murdered host That moves with sad, averted eyes, Like victims to a sacrifice, To where the Via Sacra lies.

Behold the mighty Judgment Hall, Where Nero with indifferent air Remarked the pleading of St. Paul, Nor dreamed the man before him there Would soon be read and reverenced where The Roman empire had no share!

Where are they all,--those men of pride Whose palace was the Palatine, From Romulus the fratricide To Hadrian, and Constantine, The last of all the western line Of Caesars who were deemed divine?

And all the millions who were swayed By those who dwelt upon this hill, And who in humble awe obeyed The dictates of their sovereign will,-- Are they self-conscious beings still, Or are their minds and bodies ... Nil?

I watch our planet's G.o.d decline Behind the tomb-girt Appian Way; The old, imperial Palatine Grows purple 'neath the sun's last ray; Shades of the Caesars, if ye may, The mystery of death portray!

Are there in truth Elysian Fields?