 | Poems |  |
AT ROME—IN ST. PETER'S.
Enter and wonder. Here, in the might of art,Would superstition chain men's prostrate souls;
Here homes the soaring spirit that controls
The reason through the impulse of the heart,
Giving the brain in man's belief no part,
Faith wrought from feeling. But time forward rolls,
And more is needed by earth's hungering souls
Than beauty, at whose awfulness we start,
Can feed them with. Therefore of change men dream;
Therefore, in the vast shadow of this dome,
Are fear and trembling, and the alien gleam
Of bayonets; therefore does the soldier home
In thy hush'd palaces that peaceful seem
Until the breeding earthquake shake thee, Rome.
| Poems | |