THE silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne
the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
"Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with
OSCAR WILDE.
SAINTS and Cæsars are here,
Bishops of Rome and the world,
Rulers by love and by fear,
Those who in purple and gold
Pranked and lorded it here;
Those who in sackcloth and shame
Elected their limbs to enfold,
Scornful of pleasure and fame:
Ah, they had their reward!
There is something else that I seek
On the flowery sward,
By the pile of Cestius here!
Is it but two stones like the rest
Fondly preserving a name
Elsewhere unheeded of fame,
Set here by love, and left
To gather grey, like the rest?
-Psha! "T is the fate of man!
We are wretched, we are bereft
Of all that gave life its plan,
The sunbeam and treasure of yore;
We lay it in earth and are gone;
Then, as before,
We laugh and forget like the rest.
A transient name on the stone,.
A transient love in the heart;
We have our day and are gone:
But it is not so with these
There is life and love in the stone;
Names of beauty and light,
Over all lands and seas
They have gone forth in their might;
Warmer and higher beats
The general heart at the words
Shelley and Keats:
There is life and love in the stone!
He with the gleaming eyes
And glances gentle and wild,
The angel eternal child;
His heart could not throb like ours,
He could not see with our eyes
Dimmed with the dulness of earth,
Blind with the bondage of hours;
Yet none with diviner mirth
Hailed what was noble and sweet;
The blood-tracked journey of life,
The way-sore feet,
None have watched with more human eyes.
And he who went first to the tomb,-
Rejoice, great souls of the dead!
For none in that earlier Rome
Took a bolder and lordlier heart
To the all-receiving tomb:
No richer, more equable eye,
No tongue of more musical art
Conversed with the gods on high,
Among all the minstrels who made
Sweetness 'tween Etna and Alp;
Nor was any laid
With such music and tears in the tomb.
What seek ye, my comrades at Rome?
To see and be seen at the gay
Meet on the Appian Way,
Or within the tall palace at eve
To dance out your season at Rome?
To muse on the giants of old,
In the Forum at twilight to grieve?
It is more than these ruins enfold!
Warmer and higher beats
The Englishman's heart at the words
Shelley and Keats!
And here is the heart of our Rome.
UNDER the shadow of our pyramid,
Rome's thought of Egypt,-dearest, there are hid
Two graves of English poets. I have heard
That no celestial song of love or loss
That Italy gave birth to could outvie
Their rapture whom death gave to Italy.
So here three ages meet: the imperial word
Of nations sunk in night still sounds across
The tide of years, to tell the spirit's life
Through the poor form's decay. Not otherwise
These verses that I sing to thee are rife
With visions Adam dreamed in Paradise
And hopes that herald in the Eternal Day:
Hearts turn to dust,-Love changes not alway.
JOHN HALL INGHAM.
RID OF the world's injustice, and his pain,
He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue:
Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
O poet-painter of our English land!
Thy name was writ in water-it shall stand:
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.
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