 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Thou Giant Phantom of the Old Renown!
Oh, mightiest spirit of the merciless!
How like a Demon from hell's lava throne,
Thou risest on my eye, as I behold
The spectres of the Past, and paint their deeds!
Up from the abyss of ages—from the Night
Of Earth's extinguished generations—rise
The beings of an elder world to be
The theme in song of one whom all the earth,
And all it hath or ever can inherit,
Ne'er can solace for all the woes of Time.
Now o'er the heaven of Thought the glimmering forms
Of empires rent and centuries past career—
Now giant Shadows of the Buried move
Around me—beautiful and haughty forms—
Waked from the dust of ages to endure,
Again, the vanities of earth's best joys,
The certainties of evil—(mind restores
The dead)—and havoc cries ascend the heavens
While to Pompeii's waiting thousands, groans
Of the convulsed volcano give reply.
The feeble and the famishing and slaves,
Whose toil a thousand years will not reveal,
Alone are seen upon the public ways;
And every face is chronicled with care,
Loathing the lingering lapse of wasted breath,
The purposeless continuance of low toil
And want and thankless servitude, amid
The meshes of a wan and dim despair.
All else find pastime in the savageness
Of games where smiles and shouts are bought with blood.
Quæstor, ædile, senator and knight,
Censor and flamen, vestal and courtesan,
Noble and commoner, commingling, meet
Amid the horrors of that final day,
Whose shuddering sunlight to Pompeii bids
Farewell—through centuries of Night interred,—
In torture to seek rapture, in the pangs
Of gladiators gored and Christians gashed
And mangled to proclaim their ecstacies!
The dicer in the midst suspends his skill,
Tested by spoil wrung from the heart of want,
To witness and applaud the guiltier tests
Of science; and the banqueter forsakes
The wanton wassail of the flesh to seek
The richer revel of the bandit mind;
And spotless vestals the electric fire
Of Vesta's shrine desert and through their veils
Gaze, from the podium of patrician pride,
On sinless blood poured o'er the trampled sand
From the hot veins of causeless strife; the judge
Bears from the Forum the remorseless thoughts,
Which, petrified by usage, have become
His Nature, never thrilled by mercy's voice.
The matron, whom dishonour dares not name;
The virgin in her beauty angel pure;
The warrior, who, amid the Torrid Zone
Or icehills of Helvetia, ne'er had learned
The strategy of pale retreat, nor paused
In the swift triumph of his bannered march;
The merchant, whose integrity no thought
Assails; the poet from his dreams of eld,
Elfland and wizardry and fabled gods;
Sages, by their disciples canonized,
Who from Saturnian visions, feigning power
Without oppression and republics stained
By no corruptions, bosomed 'mid the bowers
Of the Evening Isles or Orcades—arise
To look upon the agonistes' face
Imaging hell, and with the circus' shouts
Mingle the fiats of philosophy!
And augurs to perfect their oracles
Come now to gaze upon the cloven heart
And watch the spasms of Nature's utter throes.
Pompeii's might and affluence await
The Prætor's voice, and the vast fabric gleams
With million glances and with million cries
Echoes, as from the Podium now the word
Of Power commands—“Lo! let the games begin!”
Oh, mightiest spirit of the merciless!
How like a Demon from hell's lava throne,
Thou risest on my eye, as I behold
The spectres of the Past, and paint their deeds!
Up from the abyss of ages—from the Night
Of Earth's extinguished generations—rise
The beings of an elder world to be
The theme in song of one whom all the earth,
And all it hath or ever can inherit,
Ne'er can solace for all the woes of Time.
130
Of empires rent and centuries past career—
Now giant Shadows of the Buried move
Around me—beautiful and haughty forms—
Waked from the dust of ages to endure,
Again, the vanities of earth's best joys,
The certainties of evil—(mind restores
The dead)—and havoc cries ascend the heavens
While to Pompeii's waiting thousands, groans
Of the convulsed volcano give reply.
The feeble and the famishing and slaves,
Whose toil a thousand years will not reveal,
Alone are seen upon the public ways;
And every face is chronicled with care,
Loathing the lingering lapse of wasted breath,
The purposeless continuance of low toil
And want and thankless servitude, amid
The meshes of a wan and dim despair.
All else find pastime in the savageness
Of games where smiles and shouts are bought with blood.
Quæstor, ædile, senator and knight,
Censor and flamen, vestal and courtesan,
Noble and commoner, commingling, meet
Amid the horrors of that final day,
Whose shuddering sunlight to Pompeii bids
Farewell—through centuries of Night interred,—
In torture to seek rapture, in the pangs
Of gladiators gored and Christians gashed
And mangled to proclaim their ecstacies!
The dicer in the midst suspends his skill,
Tested by spoil wrung from the heart of want,
To witness and applaud the guiltier tests
Of science; and the banqueter forsakes
The wanton wassail of the flesh to seek
The richer revel of the bandit mind;
And spotless vestals the electric fire
Of Vesta's shrine desert and through their veils
Gaze, from the podium of patrician pride,
131
From the hot veins of causeless strife; the judge
Bears from the Forum the remorseless thoughts,
Which, petrified by usage, have become
His Nature, never thrilled by mercy's voice.
The matron, whom dishonour dares not name;
The virgin in her beauty angel pure;
The warrior, who, amid the Torrid Zone
Or icehills of Helvetia, ne'er had learned
The strategy of pale retreat, nor paused
In the swift triumph of his bannered march;
The merchant, whose integrity no thought
Assails; the poet from his dreams of eld,
Elfland and wizardry and fabled gods;
Sages, by their disciples canonized,
Who from Saturnian visions, feigning power
Without oppression and republics stained
By no corruptions, bosomed 'mid the bowers
Of the Evening Isles or Orcades—arise
To look upon the agonistes' face
Imaging hell, and with the circus' shouts
Mingle the fiats of philosophy!
And augurs to perfect their oracles
Come now to gaze upon the cloven heart
And watch the spasms of Nature's utter throes.
Pompeii's might and affluence await
The Prætor's voice, and the vast fabric gleams
With million glances and with million cries
Echoes, as from the Podium now the word
Of Power commands—“Lo! let the games begin!”
However the sages of antiquity condemned the cruel sports of their countrymen, they seldom hesitated to witness and thereby sanction the atrocities which were perpetrated in every amphitheatre. Like the bullfights of modern Spain, the gladiatorial contests (the death struggle of the agonistes and athlete) always attracted the presence and enjoyment of the most learned, opulent and famed of the Romans.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |