 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
“Thy slaves! thou slaveborn tyrant!” Pansa cried.
“No realm of earth is slavery's; I would bid
The dust be spirit, and the brute be man!
I came not hither by my will—I am
Thy victim, not thy vassal—and if Truth
Offends, command me hence, or argue here!
But in prætorium, dungeon Mamertine,
Chains, exile or the arena—thought and speech
Are mine; and from my country and my faith
I have not failed to learn the rights of man!
From the far hour when vestal Ilia sinned
And suffered, and Rome's walls were laid in blood,
Have human hearts had peace, whether among
Helvetian icehills or the Lybian wastes?
Conquest was born of carnage and the spoil
Of kingdoms to a hydra faction given,
While sybilline revealments—Numa's thoughts—
With old religion sanctified the deeds
Of desolators of the shuddering earth.
Scarce e'en for hours through all Rome's centuries
Hath the caduceus met the eye of day,
Or the ancilia idle in the fane
Of Rome's Wargod, whose herald is despair,
Hung: but far gleaming in the torrid sun,
'Mid standards floating to the winds of heaven,
On all the earth have cast the plagues of hell.
Boundless, perpetual and almighty Fear
Hath ever been your God of gods—rocks, caves,
Woods, grottoes, lakes and mountains are the realms
Of Dis or Jupiter's elysian fields.
And wisely named the sophist and the bard
The floods of fabled Erebus—for Rome
Baptized her sons in Phlegethons of blood,
Cheering war vigils with Cocyti songs.
Yon, by the Tyrrhene waters, on whose shores
The banished Scipio died in solitude:
The tyrant raised his hundred banquet halls,
Tritoli's stews and Baiæ's palaces;
The cannibal patrician daily slew
Captives to feed the lampreys of his lake;
And Rome's all-daring Orator, proscribed
By princely friendship in his peril, 'neath
Antony's vengeance fell, a martyr;—there,
The astute creators of your creed have feigned
Your mortal hell and heaven—in Cumæ's caves,
And Puteoli's naptha mines—amid
The beautiful Pausylipo, whose waves
And woods in sweet airs and fair suns rejoice.
And maniac yells of gorgon sybils are
Elysium's oracles, and Zephyr's voice
The music of the blest; and loftiest minds
Worship, in show, impostures they disdain,
The phantoms of the fashion, that their spoil
May be the richer booty. What reck they,
The masters of men's minds, who guides the spheres?
A myriad gods or none to them are one,
For all are nothing but fear's phantasies.
Sinris or Sciron less obeyed earth's laws
Than they the edicts of almighty Jove.
They blaspheme heaven to win the fame of earth.
The all-believing, as their priests ordain,
Adore the Demon through his daughter—Sin.
Ye know not Truth in fealty or faith—
And seas of lustral waters could not cleanse
Your tearstained and bloodsprinkled robes of guilt!”
“No realm of earth is slavery's; I would bid
The dust be spirit, and the brute be man!
I came not hither by my will—I am
Thy victim, not thy vassal—and if Truth
Offends, command me hence, or argue here!
But in prætorium, dungeon Mamertine,
122
Are mine; and from my country and my faith
I have not failed to learn the rights of man!
From the far hour when vestal Ilia sinned
And suffered, and Rome's walls were laid in blood,
Have human hearts had peace, whether among
Helvetian icehills or the Lybian wastes?
Conquest was born of carnage and the spoil
Of kingdoms to a hydra faction given,
While sybilline revealments—Numa's thoughts—
With old religion sanctified the deeds
Of desolators of the shuddering earth.
Scarce e'en for hours through all Rome's centuries
Hath the caduceus met the eye of day,
Or the ancilia idle in the fane
Of Rome's Wargod, whose herald is despair,
Hung: but far gleaming in the torrid sun,
'Mid standards floating to the winds of heaven,
On all the earth have cast the plagues of hell.
Boundless, perpetual and almighty Fear
Hath ever been your God of gods—rocks, caves,
Woods, grottoes, lakes and mountains are the realms
Of Dis or Jupiter's elysian fields.
And wisely named the sophist and the bard
The floods of fabled Erebus—for Rome
Baptized her sons in Phlegethons of blood,
Cheering war vigils with Cocyti songs.
Yon, by the Tyrrhene waters, on whose shores
The banished Scipio died in solitude:
The tyrant raised his hundred banquet halls,
Tritoli's stews and Baiæ's palaces;
The cannibal patrician daily slew
Captives to feed the lampreys of his lake;
And Rome's all-daring Orator, proscribed
By princely friendship in his peril, 'neath
123
The astute creators of your creed have feigned
Your mortal hell and heaven—in Cumæ's caves,
And Puteoli's naptha mines—amid
The beautiful Pausylipo, whose waves
And woods in sweet airs and fair suns rejoice.
And maniac yells of gorgon sybils are
Elysium's oracles, and Zephyr's voice
The music of the blest; and loftiest minds
Worship, in show, impostures they disdain,
The phantoms of the fashion, that their spoil
May be the richer booty. What reck they,
The masters of men's minds, who guides the spheres?
A myriad gods or none to them are one,
For all are nothing but fear's phantasies.
Sinris or Sciron less obeyed earth's laws
Than they the edicts of almighty Jove.
They blaspheme heaven to win the fame of earth.
The all-believing, as their priests ordain,
Adore the Demon through his daughter—Sin.
Ye know not Truth in fealty or faith—
And seas of lustral waters could not cleanse
Your tearstained and bloodsprinkled robes of guilt!”
The wand of Mercury was the sign of peace; the caduceus was, therefore, seldom out of the hand of the lord of larceny.
The Cento Camarelle of Nero and Piscina Mirabile (wonderful fishpond) of Lucullus, even in ruins, are objects of amazement to less abominable despots of modern times. Baiæ was the most voluptuous of all the voluptuous resorts of the Romans, and the baths of Tritoli were necessary to restore the patricians after Falernian excesses. Here Lucullus fed his fish on human flesh—here Cicero perished—by the permission of his friend Octavius.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |