University of Virginia Library

An Emperor that!
An Emperor! Call ye that an Emperor? She,
God's Church, made first the Christian Emperor.
The thought was great: the hope but half fulfilled.
How palpable the snare that marred that greatness!
The Emperor needed not to be a King;
Save for high cause should ne'er have been a King;
His claims were Virtue, Wisdom, Strength: his crown
The badge of Europe's soldier magistracy:
His might was spiritual half; his sword but vowed
Sin to chastise. The Church that—plagued by Rome
For centuries—honoured Rome, her name, her law,
That used her tongue in offices divine,
She crowned her Emperor with his Roman title:
She clothed him with dalmatic and with stole
A canon of St. Peter's and St. Paul's,
His name she honoured in the Mass itself!
What more could she have done for him? This boy,
What is he but a heathen king o'er-grown
Who strives to build again the old Asian empire?
I stand in this tomb-tower begirt with fires,
Protector of the Peoples and the Kings
Against his petulance—ay, but more, far more,
Avenger of God's Kingdom. In thy grave
Turn round, old Leo, of that name the Third,
Whose hands high-lifted crowned thy Charlemagne;
Roll 'neath those shaggy brows thine eyes o'er earth,
And say if on it stand a prince this hour
In whom thine eyes had seen an Emperor!
Where hid they when for forty years at Rome
Bandits usurping Peter's Chair—