Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the days when rome was hungry, and, as / robber of the world
Last Line: Such a signal of repentance as the cherry of lucullus.
Subject(s): England; English


IN the days when Rome was hungry, and, as robber of the world,
Sent her legions on a bloody quest of false and sullied glory,
She debased the famished residents that dreamed of blood at home
By a pageantry of plunder when her Arms returned from thieving.
So along the noble causeways tramped the stalwarts of the sword,
With a criss-cross patterning of scars upon their necks and faces;
And among them and behind them limped in chains the conquered braves
Who had shouted hymns of homeland as they rushed against the legions.

While the gods allowed a cataract of sunshine to be poured
On the devilry of mischief that had issued from the human,
The procession of destroyers, with the spoil of broken hearts,
Made a blot upon the universe that blemishes for ever.
Was it little, thus to hector in a land beyond their right?
Was it little, thus to shame the skies by bludgeoning the weaker?
But the sequel! For the mob was there in coarsely candid throngs
To deride the fettered nobles and to spit at stained princesses.

When I turn the page of Livy and of records such as his
My indignant veins seem bursting with a rapid flood of horror,
Till I weary for an interval of swords consigned to rust,
And for visitings, however brief, of graciousness in triumph.
Ah, Lucullus, if a flaming Judge shall ever cry to you
For a plea imperative enough to quarter condemnation,
Humbly whisper how, confusedly, you tried to clear your soul
When you brought the cordial Cherry home to Italy from Pontus!

It is told how thoroughly you marched, how ruthlessly you broke
Mithridates to your pleasure on the wheel of degradation,
Till at last you gave the signal for the cloverfields of home
To the rearing drove of stallions, to the flock of stolen virgins.
But the forefront of your Triumph, when the mob came out to stare
And to smear a kennel-Latin on the broken herd from Asia,
Was a Cherry-tree, ennobled to the leadership, and brought
To prevail more gloriously at Rome than Rome had done in Pontus.

As an image from a temple, so the Cherry moved in state
Through the causeways of a city to be vanquished by her fairness,
While Lucullus from his chariot leaned to swear to radiant friends
That the Cherry was the loveliest prize of all his lovely prizes.
'Twas a flowering of his bosom, 'twas a waking of disgust
At the Eagle with a victim's life for ever in its talons;
So I praise him to my comrades when the whiteheart in July
Bids me think of how Lucullus brought his leafy spoil from Pontus.

As you thumb old England's folio, scarce a leaf will fail to bear
At its foot the flaming signatures of Daring and of Glory.
You will hear the Saxon fighter hoarsely panting near the Sphinx,
And his cousins looting idols from the Orient pagodas.
They devour the foreign hillsides, in despite of wasps of lead,
As they chew the hard tobacco, as they hum to absent darlings,
Grinning widely at the vinegar'd expression worn by Death,
Till the bayonet jars the breastbone of the plundered Little Peoples.

So they tell me. But the signatures I find upon the leaf
Rarely thrill me with the noble touch that means authentic thrilling,
For I seem confused by voices that reveal a wavering doubt
In the heart of the magicians who have signed the coloured pages.
What the seed that grows for Nations many harvestfields of loss,
Ask of Glory, ask of Daring (since they muse awhile unbloodied)
They will whisper that the active seed of Feebleness is Force,
As they shed a tear for Empires long ago reduced to Dustbins.

See the nations falsely bowing when they hear the name of Christ
In the sanctified cathedrals where the hypocrites are seeming
To be raimented in whiteness from the Testament of Love,
While the shot-torn standards on the walls denounce the Christ they worship.
Ah, Lucullus, there was stirring misty trouble in your mind
When you gave the sword the background, when you dignified the Cherry;
But the Nations have forgotten this, and gospellings of renown,
And are flaunting in their open palms the Thirty Silver Pieces.

Little Fatherland of Britons, it were well for us to search
In the pages of our History with diligence and longing,
Not to boast about the graveyards we have filled across the seas,
Not to count the women widowed, nor the babies we have orphaned,
But in hope to find a tree of grace show green within the Book,
And to hear the warbling of a bird arisen from noble nesting,
That the generations yet to come shall find amid our stains
Such a signal of repentance as the Cherry of Lucullus.





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