When Nero rode along the Appian Way, His gaze would search, a darting arrowhead, Beyond his foaming horses, as they fled, To where the catacombs would know his day, With nurtured wrath, unloosed, and free to play In blood, to decorate with shining red The puny, little festa of the dead -- Those mouthing idiots, his silly prey! Oh, Lydia with silences of blue, And skin, petunia-white, a breathing scent; With hair like glinting shadows, grapevines through, In which the amber threads of sun are blent -- He wreaked his anger for the lust of you! In balked despair, his vengeances were meant! |