FROM Athens, Rome, and Asia, The scattered troop returns. They are Old comrades, who have felt, afar, "Et ego in Arcadia." "Come, friends! now that the table's cleared, And flesh and fowl have disappeared, Let us recount to one another Our treatment from the world, our mother. Urbanus, thou who hast a home In the great metropole of Rome, What canst thou say in blame or praise Of the rich city's latest ways?" "What! tempt an old boy thus to tell Tales out of school? Must I? Ah, well, Among ourselves perhaps I may: For Rome it is the crisis-day. The brave old city turns at bay Against a vile barbarian crew; Itself not pure as once: the new Aristocrats, who've lately sprung Like flaunting weeds from heaps of dung, The novi homines -- a breed Of clowns that scarce their names can read, Throng pave and palace, to display The vulgar antics of the day. Their wives, too senseless to be blamed, Half naked and all unashamed, Their sons with manners of the slave, Their girls with morals of the pave, These shine -- a scum upon the stream Of the great city of your dream. The rich on harlots waste their store, And brutish Gallic plays. The poor Rot in their vermin, gnash their teeth, And curse the feet they cower beneath. Meantime the city fathers steal The purses of the common weal. But there are portents in the air: The stern old Roman stuff is there, Silent and grim. The other day, A robber, swaggering with his prey Past great Justitia's column, saw Flash white the letters of the law, And swift the statue's sleeping glaive Fell ringing down and smote the knave!" "Now, Atticus, we fain would know With thee and Athens how things go. What of Brain-city? Surely there They breathe a somewhat purer air?" "Cold, cold, i' faith, and all too thin. Their thinkers have abolished sin, And virtue has become good taste. They've goodness, but it goes tight-laced. Your true Athenian likes things new; In all things superstitious, too. No temples thronged like theirs; at least By women, amorous of the priest. At knocking spirits they turn pale, And trust the augurs' spectral tale; The sly old augurs! who must wink And nudge each other, when they think. I saw a houseful on their knees Before the ghost of Pericles -- Some lank Thessalian from the fleet, Chalk-visaged, stalking in a sheet. I saw a shrewd Ionian Take forty drachmae from a man For stroking his rheumatic limb, And calling on the gods for him. At every gleam of truth they blink, Save what they think their neighbors think. I hold with old Lucretius Against their ghostly fudge and fuss. When all their gods they glibly name, And when I see this life of flame That leaps in impotent despair And breaks its heart upon the air, I turn, O friends, with clasp of hands For you -- for the divine that stands And faces me with human eyes And living deeds and dear replies." "Now, Rusticus, what of thy quest Beyond the barriers of the West?" "The earth all right; the world all wrong. The birds are wise, the beasts are strong; The trees are virtuous, pure the air, And field and farm and fold are fair; But as to men -- ye know what are The thick clods of Boeotia: Too dull to read, too dull to think, Brain-sodden, with the Celtic drink, Till any demagogue may win Their plaudits, plumed however thin. In feverish towns impatient strive The angry toilers of the hive, Storing not honey, soon or late, But venom of distrust and hate. Bitter of heart, and blind of brain, They grope for better things in vain, And crouch like whipped hounds to the knaves That boast them free to bind them slaves." "And now, Mugwumpius, bard and seer, How wags thy world, this many a year? Far hidden in thy mountain tower, What is thy message of the hour?" "Like hurrying life, my thought I tell In two words -- welcome! and farewell! I've trimmed my vines, and browned my hay, And fed my pheasants of Cathay, Watching you others try your wings, And pondering on the world of things. I trust the seasons, as they roll; I trust the striving human soul. These ills and wrongs that gall and goad, I count them all as episode; And far beyond these years I see The dawn of golden destiny. Welcome, oh, welcome! -- Nay, a bell More solemn peals -- farewell! farewell!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO IMAGINATION (2) by EMILY JANE BRONTE AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG by OLIVER GOLDSMITH PANDOSTO, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME: IN PRAISE OF HIS BEST-BELOVED FAWNIA by ROBERT GREENE AN EPITAPH ON A ROBIN REDBEAST by SAMUEL ROGERS THE AGE OF HERBERT & VAUGHAN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE TWO MOTHERS by VIRGINIA BULLOCK-WILLIS AN ELEGY UPON THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY by JOHN CLEVELAND SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH: 4 by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH |