Life and Phantasy by William Allingham: With frontispiece by Sir John E. Millais: A design by Arthur H. Hughes and a song for voice and piano forte |
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CIVITAS DEI. |
 | Life and Phantasy |  |
157
CIVITAS DEI.
I.
The roads are long and rough, with many a bend,But always tend
To that Eternal City, and the home
Of all our footsteps, let them haste or creep.
That city is not Rome.
Great Rome is but a heap
Of shards and splinters lying in a field;
Where children of to-day
Among the fragments play,
And for themselves in turn new cities build.
II.
That city's gates and towers,Superber than the sunset's cloudy crags,
Know nothing of the earth's all-famous flags;
It hath its own wide region, its own air.
Our kings, our lords, our mighty warriors,
Are not known there.
The wily pen, the cannon's fierce report,
Fall very short.
158
III.
Where is it? . . . Tell who can.Ask all the best geographers' advice.
Is't builded in some valley of Japan,
Or secret Africa? or isle unfound?
Or in a region calm and warm
Enclosed from every storm
Within the magical and monstrous bound
Of polar ice?
IV.
Where is it? . . . Who can tell?Yet surely know,
Whatever land or city you may claim,
From otherwhere you came,
Elsewhither you must go;
Ev'n to a City with foundations low
As Hell,
With battlements Heav'n-high;
Which is eternal; and its place and name
Are mystery.
| Life and Phantasy | |