 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
“Mock on, Blood Drinker! Mariamne mocks
Thee and thy wanton minions, wheresoe'er
Beneath the Orcus of your power she dwells.
Seek not through her dominion o'er my heart!
She hears a voice sweeter than Memnon's, feigned
To breathe daybreak farewells when o'er the blue
Of lustrous morn Aurora's roselights gushed;
She feels the viewless presence of her God—
Earth has no power upon her stainless soul!
Therefore, again, I tell thee, Rome shall wail
For all her havocs, treasons, spoils and plagues.
Oh, every empire of her vast domains
Hath its aceldama, where voices howl
Anathemas the future shall fulfil.
All power is venal through her fated realms.
The rebel's Rubicon o'ersweeps the land,
And all its waves are blood! proscription's code,
Taught by the triumvir, is the only law
Left by unanswering Cæsar unannulled.
How many ages with their agonies
Have perished since the people had a choice
Of their oppressors? What's the ordeal, now,
Censors and consuls must endure? and where
The simple wreath that stories tested deeds?
All the sweet shadowings of old phantasie,
The enchantments of religion, false and vain,
But glowing, in its earliest dreams, with love—
Arion and the dolphin, Orpheus
And hymning groves and awful Dis defied
By passion in bereavement, daring death;
The sungod's pæans o'er the Cyclades,
The charmed illusions of the Blessed Isles,
The mystery and rapture of high thought,
That from the sacred porticoes and banks
Of beautiful Ilissus poured its light
O'er Tyber and the haunts of Tusculum—
All, now, have vanished—and the powers of air,
Your fathers deemed their seraphim, receive
From atheist scoffers of the time defiled
Derision; and emasculated vice
Gloats over memories e'en Pan might loathe.
—Breathe not a hope that vengeance will forget!
A darker doom than his, whose savage eyes
Glared from the marshes of Minturnæ —comes;
A destiny more terrible than his
Who died blaspheming in corruption's arms,
Shameless in shame, at Puteoli—lours!
The voice of judgment hath pronounced on sin
Extinction—and the Avengers are abroad!
From the Ister and the Rha, the stormlashed shores
Of the Codanus and Verginian sea—
From glacier steep and torrid crag—from vale
And wilderness—city and waste—shall rush
Devourers; and a thousand years shall weep
In darkness o'er her desolated pomp,
And thousand times ten thousand vassal hearts
Live without love and die without regret,
Boasting their bondage, and in titles won
By pandering to an earth-fiend's lust, exult,
And call their shame patrician privilege!
The Goth hath trod the citadel; the Gaul,
The Scythian, Vandal, Ostrogoth and Hun,
Shall reap the harvest of her ruin! Time
Wafts on the terrible revenge—the doom
Challenged by centuries of guilt!—I hear
The tocsin and the gong—the clarion blast,
The roar of savage millions in their wrath—
Barbarian yells like billows hurled o'er rocks—
And where the Labarum of glory floats
Triumphant now—I see a hoar head crowned
By the three diadems of earth, hell, heaven—
And the bright land of plenty trod by hordes
Of bandits, famished peasants, coward chiefs—
All of Rome buried save the tyranny!”
Thee and thy wanton minions, wheresoe'er
Beneath the Orcus of your power she dwells.
Seek not through her dominion o'er my heart!
She hears a voice sweeter than Memnon's, feigned
To breathe daybreak farewells when o'er the blue
Of lustrous morn Aurora's roselights gushed;
She feels the viewless presence of her God—
Earth has no power upon her stainless soul!
Therefore, again, I tell thee, Rome shall wail
For all her havocs, treasons, spoils and plagues.
Oh, every empire of her vast domains
Hath its aceldama, where voices howl
Anathemas the future shall fulfil.
All power is venal through her fated realms.
The rebel's Rubicon o'ersweeps the land,
And all its waves are blood! proscription's code,
Taught by the triumvir, is the only law
Left by unanswering Cæsar unannulled.
How many ages with their agonies
Have perished since the people had a choice
Of their oppressors? What's the ordeal, now,
Censors and consuls must endure? and where
The simple wreath that stories tested deeds?
All the sweet shadowings of old phantasie,
The enchantments of religion, false and vain,
But glowing, in its earliest dreams, with love—
125
And hymning groves and awful Dis defied
By passion in bereavement, daring death;
The sungod's pæans o'er the Cyclades,
The charmed illusions of the Blessed Isles,
The mystery and rapture of high thought,
That from the sacred porticoes and banks
Of beautiful Ilissus poured its light
O'er Tyber and the haunts of Tusculum—
All, now, have vanished—and the powers of air,
Your fathers deemed their seraphim, receive
From atheist scoffers of the time defiled
Derision; and emasculated vice
Gloats over memories e'en Pan might loathe.
—Breathe not a hope that vengeance will forget!
A darker doom than his, whose savage eyes
Glared from the marshes of Minturnæ —comes;
A destiny more terrible than his
Who died blaspheming in corruption's arms,
Shameless in shame, at Puteoli—lours!
The voice of judgment hath pronounced on sin
Extinction—and the Avengers are abroad!
From the Ister and the Rha, the stormlashed shores
Of the Codanus and Verginian sea—
From glacier steep and torrid crag—from vale
And wilderness—city and waste—shall rush
Devourers; and a thousand years shall weep
In darkness o'er her desolated pomp,
And thousand times ten thousand vassal hearts
Live without love and die without regret,
Boasting their bondage, and in titles won
By pandering to an earth-fiend's lust, exult,
And call their shame patrician privilege!
The Goth hath trod the citadel; the Gaul,
The Scythian, Vandal, Ostrogoth and Hun,
Shall reap the harvest of her ruin! Time
Wafts on the terrible revenge—the doom
Challenged by centuries of guilt!—I hear
The tocsin and the gong—the clarion blast,
126
Barbarian yells like billows hurled o'er rocks—
And where the Labarum of glory floats
Triumphant now—I see a hoar head crowned
By the three diadems of earth, hell, heaven—
And the bright land of plenty trod by hordes
Of bandits, famished peasants, coward chiefs—
All of Rome buried save the tyranny!”
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |