 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
The knelling slaves in goblets wrought from gems
Served acrid wine—on gold plate, bitter herbs
To zest the appetite; and, glancing up
His haughty eyes, burning with hate and scorn,
Chafed Diomede upon his vassals flung
The venom of his darkly brooding mind.
“Be thy locks shorn as fits thine office, slave!
Or I may brand the theta on thy brow
Less undefined, and make the dust thy food!
Companian servitude, methinks, outgrows
All wantonness. Ho, Midas! thou art skilled,
I hear, in tintinnaculating verse,
And lispest snatches of philosophy!
Be master of thy safety! I may lose
A pampered slave erelong—or, at the best,
The tintinnaculus may shame thy clink! —
—Be merry, friends!—what tidings from the throne?
Ye have beheld the Temple of the Peace
Filled with the spoils of rebel Jews, where all
Treasure their gold and gems—a trophied fame!
The gorgeous fabric is a coffer! Rome
Wears all earth's glories in her mighty Crown.
What think ye, then? a sackcloth skeleton
Wanders and mutters on the Palatine
That what he calls Jehovah's wrath will burst,
And in thick blackness bury all this pomp,—
Making Earth's Mistress a stark mendicant!”
Loud laughed the parasites, and wanton gibes
Were cast on Jew and Gentile; then the feast
Of rarest luxuries before them glowed,
And, (bright libations poured to Vesta first)
The beaded wine was quaffed from goblets brimm'd.
“Oh, I forget!” said Diomede, the light
Of the delirious revel in his eyes,
As in the opal radiance of the cup
They glowed, and glanced, with an exulting pride,
'Mid costliest viands from the mead and main—
“The fairest sport awaits us ere the games!
In the Campanian legion, at the siege
Of that black Golgotha the traitors called
Jerusalem, a soldier served with skill
Whom Titus made Decurion: him the plague
Of the new Heresey, and Love, at once,
Infected; and, abandoning the host,
He sought elysium in the caverns here,
Till Thraso found his philosophic haunt,
Where with his Hebrew Paphian he was wont
In hermit guise to play the liberal.
He dies today; but for the present mirth
His tongue may vibrate.—Ho!—The Nazarene!”
Served acrid wine—on gold plate, bitter herbs
To zest the appetite; and, glancing up
His haughty eyes, burning with hate and scorn,
Chafed Diomede upon his vassals flung
The venom of his darkly brooding mind.
“Be thy locks shorn as fits thine office, slave!
Or I may brand the theta on thy brow
Less undefined, and make the dust thy food!
Companian servitude, methinks, outgrows
All wantonness. Ho, Midas! thou art skilled,
119
And lispest snatches of philosophy!
Be master of thy safety! I may lose
A pampered slave erelong—or, at the best,
The tintinnaculus may shame thy clink! —
—Be merry, friends!—what tidings from the throne?
Ye have beheld the Temple of the Peace
Filled with the spoils of rebel Jews, where all
Treasure their gold and gems—a trophied fame!
The gorgeous fabric is a coffer! Rome
Wears all earth's glories in her mighty Crown.
What think ye, then? a sackcloth skeleton
Wanders and mutters on the Palatine
That what he calls Jehovah's wrath will burst,
And in thick blackness bury all this pomp,—
Making Earth's Mistress a stark mendicant!”
Loud laughed the parasites, and wanton gibes
Were cast on Jew and Gentile; then the feast
Of rarest luxuries before them glowed,
And, (bright libations poured to Vesta first)
The beaded wine was quaffed from goblets brimm'd.
“Oh, I forget!” said Diomede, the light
Of the delirious revel in his eyes,
As in the opal radiance of the cup
They glowed, and glanced, with an exulting pride,
'Mid costliest viands from the mead and main—
“The fairest sport awaits us ere the games!
In the Campanian legion, at the siege
Of that black Golgotha the traitors called
Jerusalem, a soldier served with skill
Whom Titus made Decurion: him the plague
Of the new Heresey, and Love, at once,
Infected; and, abandoning the host,
He sought elysium in the caverns here,
Till Thraso found his philosophic haunt,
Where with his Hebrew Paphian he was wont
In hermit guise to play the liberal.
120
His tongue may vibrate.—Ho!—The Nazarene!”
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |