Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A MEDITATION, by AGNES LEE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A MEDITATION, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rome has been dead these many hundred years
Last Line: Rome still rules.
Alternate Author Name(s): Freer, Otto, Mrs.
Subject(s): Government; Language; Latin; Law & Lawyers; Legacies; Roman Empire; Rome, Italy; Words; Vocabulary; Attorneys


Rome has been dead these many hundred years --
Of all the might which thrust her bronze-clad men,
Clamoring
And storming to the ends of all the earth,
Not strength enough is left today to lift
A locust's wing.

And yet she lives forever. Would you speak,
She offers you the word. And would you build,
On her pages
Lies beauty deathless. Would you make a law,
Rome whispered in Napoleon's ear a code
For the ages.

In overwhelming chaos everywhere
Slouched the stupendous years, unnamed, unnoted.
Even Greece afar
Gave them but moon-guides, till stern Rome, aware,
Ordered their march and gave the echoing world
The calendar.

There is a curving road from Engadine
Whose Roman stones attest the centuries.
Roman tools
Made safe between its wild and steep escarpments
The traveler of today. Forget the Caesars? --
Rome still rules.





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