While faith forecasts millennial years Spite Europe's embattled lines, Back to the Past one glance be cast -- The Age of the Antonines! O summit of fate, O zenith of time When a pagan gentleman reigned, And the olive was nailed to the inn of the world Nor the peace of the just was feigned. A halcyon Age, afar it shines, Solstice of Man and the Antonines. Hymns to the nations' friendly gods Went up from the fellowly shrines, No demagogue beat the pulpit-drum In the Age of the Antonines! The sting was not dreamed to be taken from death, No Paradise pledged or sought, But they reasoned of fate at the flowing feast, Nor stifled the fluent thought. We sham, we shuffle while faith declines -- They were frank in the Age of the Antonines. Orders and ranks they kept degree, Few felt how the parvenu pines, No law-maker took the lawless one's fee In the Age of the Antonines! Under law made will the world reposed And the ruler's right confessed, For the heavens elected the Emperor then, The foremost of men the best. Ah, might we read in America's signs The Age restored of the Antonines. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LIBERTY FOR ALL by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON THAT NATURE IS A HERACLITEAN FIRE & OF THE COMFORT OF THE RESURRECTION by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS BASE DETAILS by SIEGFRIED SASSOON THE WINGED WORSHIPPERS; ADDRESSED TO TWO SWALLOWS .. DURING SERVICE by CHARLES SPRAGUE THE HIGHER PANTHEISM by ALFRED TENNYSON THE REVENGE; A BALLAD OF THE FLEET by ALFRED TENNYSON THE SECOND BROTHER; AN UNFINISHED DRAMA by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE REPLY OF SOCRATES, CONCERNING THE WRITINGS OF HERACLITUS by JOHN BYROM |