LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ®|np ©up^rig^t l|u.i-A-'^. Shelf _-4-)i^ci^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Prorsus R RORSUS X\ETRORSUS. BY DENTON J. SNIDER. 3U2^77 ^y ST. LOUIS: SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 210 PINE ST. 1892. ■•V Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1892, By DENTON J. SNIDER, in the Office of Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. /^-3?;/^ -JONES PRINTING CO., 212 PINE ST., ST. L0UI3. TABLE OF COJVTUJSTTS. PRELUDE — POLYDORE and AURORA 5 Part First— Ecce Roma. Book First — In Urbem. 1 . Ultimus Eomanorum 25 2. Koma Carissima 32 3. The Eoman Holiday 44 4. Found 48 5. The Open Secret 50 6. August Roma and Roman Augusta 55 7. On the Pincio 60 8. In a Roman Wineshop 64 9. The Roman Cupbearer = 6Q 10. The Goddess of the Capitol 70 11. Nature and Art at Rome 76 12. On the Tiber 81 13. The Old Titan at Rome 8Q 14. Those Tell-tales the Muses 89 15. A Little Eoman Olympus 92 16. Anticipation 98 17. Art and Life 101 18. Experience 104 19. Palingenesis 106 iii iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. Book Second — Ex Urbe. 1. Confession 108 2. Vision of Castaly 109 3. The New Prometheus 112 4. Metempsychosis 115 5. An Old Legend Ke-incarnated 120 6. Tiber and Arethusa 124 7. The Two Muses ^ 125 8. The Two Streams 125 9. Looking Backward 126 10. The Sigh of Hellas in Rome 126 11. Art 128 12. The Great Fall 128 13. A Translation 129 14. An Oration 130 15. Premonition 131 16. The Two Guides 131 17. The Two Cities 131 18. Retrorsus 132 19. Prorsus 132 Part Second -— Epigrammatic Voyage. Book First — Italy, INTERMEZZO —PASTORALE « c 185 Book Second — Hellas. Maid of Athens 238 Hymn to Pallas 243 Polydore and Aurora. Prceludium Matutinum, Weary, unwilling, the eyelids droop, though slumber has left them ; Polydore rises alone, sits on his couch with a sigh ; Long he has wandered in hope, pursuing a vision of splendor, Filled is his heart with a dream, whether he wake or he sleep. Soon he sets forth in the dark for the hills, for the tops of the mountains, Toil^ which wearies the world, brings him his only repose. Troubled he is with an image, sweet image that drives him to wander, Polydore is not too old, is not too young for the quest. (5) 6 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. Up the rough pathway he climbs, which leads him away from his cabin, Down he hastes to the dell, through the wild gloom of the glen, Forward he steps full-hearted, his lot is ever to wander, Polydore's locks are still brown, shot through with silvery strands. Dawn is dreamilj^ touching the farthest tops of the mountains, Which, not fully awake, drowsily rise from the earth In the distance ; like giants they rise and shake off their slumber, With a dull droop of the head vanishing into mists For a moment, but at a wink they spring back to twilight: Polydore, young in his dreams, walks out of darkness to dawn. Longing in minstrelsy sweet, and lingering over his journey, He will hum a low note tuned to a shell in iiis hand; Images swarm on his path to the heights and mock all his senses, List ! his voice too they touch, tipping his words with their wings : POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. 7 ** Lovely Aurora I I see tliee arise from thy bed in the Orient, With the stroke of thy hand moving the cur- tain aside; White and slender thy fingers are laid on that curtain nocturnal, Hanging down from the skies, faintly ingrained with light ; Through the break that hath cloven the night, I gain sweetest glimpses Of a maiden that stirs, clad in the white robe of rest, On a bed that is made of the snow-flake or down of the eider. And is rocked to a hymn sung by the winds of the hills. But now while I am peering with curious eye to behold thee. Out with a bound thou art sprung, maiden of mildness and grace, And in thy soft-flowing garment thou sweepest across the high Heavens, Robed in the drapery fair of the Immortals of old. Goddess thou art, I adore thee, I know thy shape and thy movement. Now appearing to me, mortal yet dear to thy glance. Pour in my wandering soul a nectarean drop of thy beauty, 8 PBOESUS BETBOBSUS. As thou revealest thyself yonder amid the mad stars Throwing their torches unnumbered into thy calm mellow lustre, Till they, lost in thy train, seem to have shot from the sky. Up the horizon thou movest a queen, in silence majestic, No one heareth thy step ere thy sweet presence be felt; Where thou passest is light, but not the fierce glare of Apollo, Mild is thy lustre as love that is unknown to itself." Polydore stopped for a breath, how strong and swift were his heart-beats. Forging the thought of his soul into the musical word ! Soon he felt lonely, he could not endure his own company voiceless. For to another he sang, could he but sing to himself. Deeply he sighed for what was behind, but he ever looked forward ; Strange how future and past mingled their strains in his song ! Was it Aurora he saw, or was it the thought of another FOLYDOEE AND AUBOBA. 9 Who had slipped into her shape, as he addressed her on high? ** Oh how youthful thy glance as coyly thou climbestthe Heavens ! Blushes start in thy cheek, roses are wound in thy hair, Innocence moves in thy light, yet tinged with a red ray of passion ; Maiden divinely young, thine is the gift of the Gods. When horrid Night has long blinded the Hours beneath her dark mantle, On thy lover thou look'st, then all at once there is light ; Every morning for him thou hast the fresh face of the flowers. Dipped in Castalian dew, breathing Elysian perfume ; And from thine eyes there flows through the world a shy subtle radiance : 'Tis the love in thy look, deepest and first of the heart. Thine is that first love, breaking its way out the soul to the senses. With the might of the God, who in the heart builds a shrine All to himself, and thence he divinely doth pour out his splendors, 10 PBOBSUS BETB0B8U8. Newly begetting the man, newly creating the world. First love knoweth the mortal but once, while thine is forever, Born each morning anew for the dear spouse at thy side ; O, the hard law for us of the wretched race of Terrestrials, Draughts repeated though sweet, lose of their flavor divine; Once, only once can be felt the delicious surprise of the senses. Once the rapture of soul, when we know not what we do.'' In the swoon of his feeling pale Polydore sank into silence. Back he looked on his path ; has he left some- thing behind? Softly his glances were flushed with the rays of a fond recognition, See, on the gloom of the night flashes the hope of the Dawn. O Polydorus, art thou, mad imortal, now wooing a Goddess? Hush, his voice has come back, as he looks into the East: " Say, for whom is this love of the maid, the whole world overflowing. POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. H Every new morn in a bliss kindled down under the sea? For Tithonus, happy Tithonus, old man and a mortal ; Him caresses the maid daily abloom in her youth, Where he lies on his couch far beyond the round rim of the ocean, Till Aurora in fright upward unwillingly springs. Roused by the rumble and roar far away, on the breath of the darkness Borne to her bed of repose, startling ambrosial hours. Hark I 'tis the whirl of the wheels, and the stamp of the steeds of Apollo, In a chariot of flames bringing the bold-eyed day. 'Hasten, Aurora, announce with thy torch his coming to mortals. Circle the globe with thy wings, night shall restore thee to love. Here I await thy return o'er the sea in soft fleeces of slumber ; Rouse up the work of the world, heralding light and its task; Round the whole earth thou must pass, my em- brace must be earned by thy journey, Parted we are for a day, won by thy duty is love.' 12 PBOBHUS BETBOBSUB. Up she leaps from the couch, and glances afar to the westward, Into the darkness she peers, that lies out- stretched on the globe Like a dragon ; then lifting the train of her robe of pure twilight, Softly she treads on the hills, steps from a top to a top. Till she hath filled the whole arch of the sky to the bending horizon With her Olympian folds waving soft silence of light; As if a statue might suddenly rise from a mount- ain of marble Into the welkin above, there to be seen as a God. Forth she is ready to fly, but turns in the pang of departure, Gives a last look at her love, yet with a hope on her face; Many complaints she sighs on the night wind about separation. She embraces those limbs furrowed and trem- bling with age. And she strokes with her delicate hand the white locks of Tithonus, Kissing to smoothness his brow broken in ridges by time. Ib it true that Love can be kindled by snows of the winter? POLYDOBE AND AUEOEA. 13 Seeks it to slake its fierce thirst at the cool fountain of age ? Gentle tears fill her eyes during all of the hours of absence, Weep a soft dew on the earth till every flower's deep heart, Touched with a sisterly grief, is filled with a drop of pure sorrow; Heaven's star-lit dome loses itself in her glance, Constellations swoon out of their place at the touch of her finger. And in her light-flowing veil sapphires she culls from the skies. Yet, Aurora, yet never wert thou by the day overtaken. Far in advance of each sun is thy fleet flight from embrace, Time thou hast left in the race, thou outsteppest the steeds of Apollo, Who from his car overhead smites us to age with his beams. But, O lily-crowned victress, immortal thou art and a Goddess, Youth sits throned in thy cheek, scattering blossoms eterne. In the evening thou bathest thy waist in the springs of the Ocean, Then every morn at this hour thou art arisen new-born." 14 PBOBSUS BBTBOBSUS, Polydore ceased; he sat down on a stone, the first stone of a temple, Smote with his staff in the soil, out of the ground peeped a face, That had been hewn in the ages antique by the hand of a sculptor. Formed to a lore in his heart out of the Parian block. Long it had lain in the earth, its body immortal with beauty. Slept the long sleep of its night veiled from the look of the world, Till now Polydore wandering happens along on his journey, Strikes but a blow with his staff, gone is the magical spell, Out of the grave uprises a Goddess to glad resurrection. Still with the smile of her youth brought down from Hellas of old. What, thou too on the earth! and takest thy shape in my presence ! Polydore rose in his joy, stood on the stone of the fane. Lofty Aurora appeared to his vision transfigured to marble Out of the twilight afar falling in refluent folds. But when again he looked at the sky, the face of the morning POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. 15 Told of a change, a decay, plaintively tuning his words: <* Goddess 1 thy lover Tithonus is not only old, but a mortal, Older he grows each day, burnt is his flesh by the suns Till it is crisp to the touch, and soon must drop down into ashes, When by endowment divine there will be left him his voice. Once he too was a youth along the green banks of Scamander, Fairest of shepherds he grew, piping on Ideean heights ; 'Mid the daughters of swains he passed a sunny existence, With them leading the dance over the emerald slopes. Haunting meadows and streams sweet nymphs ever wooed him, All their love was in vain 'gainst the high rival who came. For it was thou. As thy light-stepping chorus sped over the hill-tops Once long ago in a laugh to the Dardanian vale. Thou beheldest him first, and thereafter ahead of the morning, 16 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. Softly on tiptoe thou cam'st out of the East with a blush, Thou didst slip up behind and peer over the high top of Ida, Gaze on the shepherd asleep down in the valley below ; Kapt in a dream of thy love mid his dew-laden herd he was lying, There thou didst join thy white arms round the fresh loins of the youth, Daintily lift him and lap him in slumberous folds of thy twilight, Bear him away round the world over Oceanus' streams. Thither ye fled, ye lovers antique, and dwelt in your rapture, Which, O Goddess, still gleams into the world from thy face, But the years the mortal pursued and plowed up his forehead, Wisdom's harvest they sowed, but with the tares of Old Age. Pale grew the cheek of Tithonus, and the light curl on his temples, Bitterly frosted all through, like a lone icicle hung. Weak is Old Age, but he creeps on the frolic- some days of the youthful, While in the garden they sport mid the red roses of life, FOLYDOBE AND AUBORA. 17 Fair Tithoniis grew old , yet he had a young love in his bosom, Which immortal will be when the frail body is dropped ; And he still has a voice outpouring the notes of new music, Hymning a passionate strain to his Aurora the fair ; Song holds the essence immortal of love, where- in all its fervor Out of the heart is expressed into the heart by the word. 'Tis his voice that she loves, to his voice her soul is still clingino^, Though the rose leaf hath dropped out of his cheek to the ground; Voice immortal to youth immortal in them is wedded. Like has found like in its love, Homer has married his Muse. For the voice of Tithonus still sings with the warmth of a lover, And sweet accents of song fall from his bodiless lips, Like the low tender whispers of Zephyrus, wooer of evening. Breaths that stray on the air, melting to musical sighs. Age, while it calms with its wisdom, has filled up the deeps of the passion, 2 18 FB0B8US BETB0B8US. Shallow the vessel that seethes wild at one touch of the flame. Still a young shepherd he is, and sings a fresh song to the maiden, Voice untouched by decay changes old years into new. Poet Tithonus, old man and a mortal," cried Polydorus, *' Youth, a Goddess, each night breathes golden dreams on thine eyes, And each morn to her task she springs from thy couch with caresses, Weaving the kiss of her lips into the word of thy soul. Thou dost speak at the touch of thy passion, that speech sings forever, Sings in the soul of the maid which she rays out of her looks. As she now meets me and passes in haste to return to her lover, There to drink the full song which I hear lisped in her train. Old man, thine is the gift of the Gods, their best gift to mortals, Word that never grows old, treasured in maid- enly heart, Voice that ever is fresh in the dews of a morning eternal. POLTDOBE AND AUBOBA, 19 Thine is the gift of the Gods — share me thy heavenly gift, Share me the love of Aurora, the beautiful, youthful forever, Thou art a mortal, art dead — pity me here still alive. Me a mortal like thee, still chasing the hope and the passion, Share me thy gift of the Gods,— » share me the youth of the world Which though linked to thy body of death, is wooed by us living, Share me the beautiful one" — Polydore looked, she was gone; Garish Day had driven her off with a bold stare of sunlight. As on the summits above Phoebus was mount- ing his car. She had fled out of sight, the lone minstrel was left in the valley. With a dream in his heart nourishing pas- sionate strains; Still the fair vision was humming all day in his thoughts as he wandered. Tuning to music their dance as they would leap into words. Like the youths of the chorus who print a melod- ious movement 20 PB0B8U8 BETROBSUS, Clear on Parnassian air, winding about on the slopes. But she had fled from him, hastening forth to the couch of Tithonus, Ghostly old man of the East, long ago bodily dead. But who is wedded to youthful Aurora, the fair, the immortal : Polydore, hope for the maid, she will to-mor- row return. Thou must catch her spirit's still shadow the moment it passes, Fix it forever in lines drawn round her fugitive form ; Look again at her statue that once stood up in this temple, Mark how swift is her flight, though in eternal repose. Fleet Aurora will yield up her speed to the hand of a mortal, But an Olympian net over her shape he must cast, As the form of fair Aphrodite was caught by the Artist, Holding her helplessly fast in his invisible toils; For not even a Goddess can break out the net of her bondage. POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. 21 If she once has been seized, prisoned in beauti- ful lines. Haste, Polydorus, speed thy way to the lands of Aurora, Over the rim of the sea into the home of the Past, Go, now brmg her thy living love, as once did Tithonus, Go, take captive her form, then she forever is thine. PART FIRST. Ecce Roma. (23) i00h Jfirst. In Urbem. I. Ultimus Romano rum. What can it be in that face which couples so Great and so Little — Often I ask of myself moving amid Roman crowds. Many a look that flits through the streets has the shadowy semblance Of a something divine which was alive long ago. Many a form is an echo like that of a dim distant trumpet Heralding glories past sunk in the flesh of to- day. (25) 2Q PBOBSUS BETB0B8U8. List the lament on the air from a swift spectral face that I followed Through the noise of the crowd, out of the market to church, Over the Tiber and up to the Pincio, eluding me always Till the Pantheon's spell both of us held face to face : ** Seek me no further, stop! on this spot I yield up my secret Which for centuries long I have been bearing in pain; Here is the fane where anciently mingled the Gods and the Heroes, Built in the form of the world holding within it the world. See ! it surrounds thy gaze like the high everlast- ing horizon. Arches itself to a dome bearing thee up to the skies. Everywhere it is telling of greatness — of Great Men who dwelt here, And are dwelling here still — hark to the voice on these walls. Deem it not fancy — oft now in Rome thou wilt see an old Hero, Or it may be a God, clad in the shapes of the low; He has returned once more to the Earth to serve out his penance, ECCE BOMA. 27 For the sin of his deed which he had wrought here before ; Still he could not avoid the burden and pang of the action ; Destiny forced him to do, driving him forward to pain. Ah, the price of the Great Deed is guilt, and guilty the Hero Pays the price of his act in the fierce torment of flesh." Suddenly over his face rolled a wave from the ocean of sadness Which he bore in his breast ; all of his frame was a storm Only a moment; strong like a Roman, he put down his heart-throbs. When again he began sternly his soul to con- fess : " Out with the word — to be great in this world doth mean to be guilty, Suffering follows from guilt, as the red light- ning of law. Mark him — the Great Man never is .happy, never ofPenseless, His endowment is Will dripping with innocent blood, Will is always the smiter, assailing some right of existence. Justice then comes with her doom, weaponed with penalty dire. 28 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. Hercules, paradised now in thy legends, Olym- pian Hero, Stalwart thine arm was indeed, burdens to heap on thy back ; What did it boot thee in toil to have cleared the wild earth of its monsters? Each great action of thine was a whole world- ful of pain. O Bellerophon ! thou for thy country and race wert the slayer Of the death-breathing fiend that from the Orient sprang; Speak the reward of thy action? Madness — within thy torn bosom Nemesis turned loose the fiends which in the fight thou hadst slain. And the mightiest one of you all, O Julius Caesar, Whb didst snatch the old world out of its funeral pyre, Where it was burning to ashes, and bowl it down into the present. Who with thy conquest didst build far in the North the great dyke. Bulwark of might and of light set against the barbarous deluge — What was thy meed but thy death followed by taunts of all Time ? Once I saw thee standing just here, the soul of this temple. ECCK BOMA. 29 And the world seemed too small holding the arch of thy brow. Daily the Sun would peep through the eye of this lofty Pantheon Thee once more to behold, greatest of all he had seen." Slowly the spirit looked up to the radiant dome of the temple, Whence the light seemed to fall down from the eye of the God ; Placing himself in the sheen, he was lit through and through with the sunfire. Out of the flames he yet spoke, dropping his head with a si^h : ** Still the Hero after his deed must lapse into lowness, Thousands of years he endures ere he is cleansed of his wrong, Suffering is his red badge, alas ! the great action is guilty, He probation must pass smitten for ages with pangs. Till his spirit is purged of its guilt and Nemesis sated. Then a Hero again he may appear on the earth." " Who art thou, specter," I cried, «« how speed- ing through time to this moment ! How escaping that law which even Rome could not break ! " 30 PBOBSUS BETIiOBSUS, But he pointed his set ghostly finger to pedestals empty Where the Great Men of Rome anciently stood with the Gods: " Ah, to be great ! it is to be guilty — it is to be wretched, Though the Hero be borne to the Olympus of Fame." More he seemed willing to speak when fell a moment of silence. Lips he moved in the sheen, but not a sound could be heard ; Like a glimmer he flashed up into the sky of the temple, Lost in the pour of the beams falling down out of the sun, With the God he rose on the sheen to the top of Pantheon, Still I peered in the light, but he had vanished beyond. Insuppressible sorrow steals o'er me, it crushes me downward, All the Fates of hoar Time break in at once to my heart, Pain strikes every sense of the body, poignant with pity For the Heroes of old, guilty in deeds that were great. This is the price of thy action, O Roman — penalty lasting ECCE BOMA. 31 Laid by the world upon thee doing the work of the world; Still thou didst not shrink from thy task, from the guilt of thy grandeur, Sad as sorrow itself, sadder it is than the grave. Tears flow down the hard stones at the tragedy born of existence, Ever the man has to do that which undoes him at last. Even to live is a deed which has in the end to be paid for, Birth is but an old debt which must be ' canceled by death. Slowly I droop on a column, I am but a drop of pure pity, In this presence is man only the fall of a tear; For a moment I swoon, then faintly I rise from my heart-ache, Out the Pantheon I grope into the sunshine of Rome. Mount, O Phoebus, thy car, and fling thy light from the Heavens, Still to-day there is joy if but to Nature we turn; Still to-day there is life, see it here festooning these ruins. Green is even decay ; up, let us pluck the new flower. 32 PBOBSUIS BETBOBSUS. 2. Roma Carissima. *' Tell me why do you daily run off to ancient museums, Or to some temple, of which merely a column now stands? Yesterday why did you gaze so long at the pillar of Trajan? Just as two men might converse both of you stood face to face. All my life I have seen it without ever hearing its language ; There I brushed you and passed, but you would never take note. What do you see in all these marble relics and ruins? Is a Goddess of stone sweeter than woman with life? Let me go with you to-day and look with your look at the statues. As they rise in long rows held upon pedestals high; I would see what you see and know what you know in this city, Surely some secret there is which you have kept from my heart." — So spake the .maiden of Rome just when in the morning I started To the task of the day, searching for treasures antique , EGCE BOMA, 33 Which have still to be dug from the ages by ' every new-comer : 'Twas not the first time she showed jealousy of the old Gods. What could I answer but " Come, you shall enter the magical circle That you may see what I see, that I may hear what you say ! " Eapidly then we went down the street and over the Tiber, Past the high palaces' pomp, through the hoar ruins of Eome ; All the city rose up from the earth and became but one temple, That was the temple of Time which he had built for himself. Soon we came to a forest of columns that led to an entrance, Where we entered great walls filled with an old sculptured world. Zeus we saw, the ruler of Gods, but the father of mortals. Parent ever below, sovereign ever above ; Well might we blench at the thunder-bolt's glare that leaped from his forehead, Still underneath we felt love softening lines in his lips. Juno was there, and proved in her look she was queen of the Heavens, 3 34 PB0B8U8 BETBOBSUS. For no mortal man ever to love her would dare; King Apollo was striding in stone to the slaughter of darkness, Swift as the gleam of the Sun, fixed though he stood on his feet ; Venus was also present in many a posture allur- ing, As the Goddess of Love she had a room to herself ; Vast was the throng of the deities coming from Earth and Olympus, Ocean, Eiver and Nymph, down to the goat- footed Faun, Everlasting assenably of Gods transfigured to marble, As they gathered once, called by the voice of the bard. When they all were summoned up to the Olym- pian palace, There to take sides in the war over the city of Troy. Many high mortals also belonged to the sacred assembly, Who have done here below nobly the deeds of the Gods, Or who have suffered for others with a divinity's patience, Who have resisted fierce Fate though they have sunk in the fight. ECCE BOM A. 35 See ! great Hercules yonder reclines — he is legless and headless. Still in his trunk you behold human becoming divine ; Ariadne forsaken has fallen asleep in her sorrow, But her dream has restored sweetly the lover she lost ; Pericles grandly is here, still speaking for war in his helmet, Man of the people he is, for he is man of the Gods ; And beside him through all the centuries lingers Aspasia, They still together remain, still they shall love in these halls. Zeus Laocoon with his fair children is linked in the serpent, Which has caught him like Fate with all his beautiful world. And great throes of despair that burst from the pain of the marble Herald the doom of the time, tragic are also the Gods ; Scarce can I keep back the sigh at the death of the beautiful ages. Petrified life of the world, still it is living in stone. Silent passes the maiden through long white lines of fair idols. 36 PBOBSUS BETROBSUS. Looking with joy on the shapes, yet too afraid of her joy; Wearied with vision at last, she began to speak of the Gods there, Standing in presence of Zeus who from his bust gave the nod : "Oft I have heard they once were alive in a world of their glory; In old times they could talk, when they were worshiped as Gods. Here in Rome they had altars and shrines, were entreated in prayer. Though they be now of rock; heathen was then all the land. Blessings they sent by day and by night, in peace and in warfare ; Then they ruled the whole world, they were the Kings of the Kings. But there came a great war — the Gods fought — and in it were beaten ; When they were thrown out the sky, fell they a stone to the earth." Then she touched the cold marble just with the tip of her finger, But withdrew it at once when she had felt the dead chill. '* Oh these people of stone, how cold in falling from Heaven ! And how broken too, in the great depth of their fall ! EGGE BOMA. 37 Still they are fouad in our soil, when we plow up the sites of old cities, And, when we dig anywhere, they will turn out of the earth ; Often they rise without heads, though the body remains undecavinoj. Think, they once were alive, walked in the streets of the town, With a man they would speak on the highway, or in the forest. And they would help him perchance, if he but knew how to pray." There she stopped for a moment as if to gather her power Boldly to utter the word which had come up in her heart : '' Nay, these Gods and Goddesses loved, they loved men and women. Who, though mortal, were fair, fair to the vision above ; Hot beat the hearts of the Gods in the joy of the love that was human. Had they been less of the man, they had not been the whole God, Theirs was the passion divine whose law is sweetly fulfillment. Then were divinity's sons born of the mothers of earth. So Rhea Silvia once gave birth to Romulus, Remus, 38 PB0B8U8 BETB0B8US. Their high father was Mars, she was the mother of Rome. Still to-day we fondly go back to her story aforetime, Greatest of mothers she is, bearing the might- iest child. Oh the old ages when Gods were sporting in river and fountain I They would enter the home, give to good people their gifts ; Now they have to be dug from the ground, from the field of their warfare, Gathered into this hall, whence they can never escape, For they are prisoners banned into stone by the Pope in his castle. He will not pardon their sins, he cannot take off the curse." Almost in spite of herself she colored her words with her pity. Dark in her soul underneath flowed a lone rill from the Gods. But I could not help sighing aloud. to her sigh: " They are free no longer ! In a prison they stand simply set up to be seen. Once when they wooed in the world, they lived with the might of a passion. Now they as captives are held, suffered no longer to love.'* BOCE BOMA. 39 Then she looked in my eye as if she suspected my matter, All at once a new rill bubbled up out of the depths, As her words in a mask took up the tone of inquiry : **Have you never yet heard they have their worshipers still, Who are scattered all over the earth, in country and city? Nobody knows who they are, or at what place they may live ; They are said to be born with a mark on their heart of this God-world, Which is unknown to their friends, even unknown to themselves. Till they read in a blood-sealed book which secretly tells them, Then to this worship they wake, though they know not what it is. Soon they start on a journey, they can hardly tell whither, • But the road leads to Eome, still the old haunt of the Gods, Whose true followers secretly come on a festival ancient Though it be hid in the day sacred perchance to a Saint. Thus they flock from every part of the globe, from each nation — 40 PB0B8U8 BETB0BSU8. From wild Tartary's East, from new America's West, All who, born out of time, are seeking their ancient heirship. For they feel they can find here the old deities yet. Who though once hurled down to be stones, with bodies all battered, Still can arouse the same spell as in the past when they breathed, For they possess the God's power to work upon men in the distance, And they would lose this gift, if they were taken from Rome." Slyly that artful maiden peeped into my face as she said this. Trying to catch my thought as it took wing on a glance ; *< Is it so? " I asked then ; she answered, ** Yes, I believe it ; That is the power they have, drawing their own from afar." Doubtful she stood for a moment, testing her thoughts in a balance, Not quite sure of herself ; soon she was braced to her words. And she continued : ** Now the clock strikes to ask you a question : Are you not one of these men, followers of the old Gods? ECCE BOMA. 41 I confess to you, long I have it suspected in secret, You have come over the sea, thousands of miles, to this spot; You are always haunting the sites of ruinous temples : Where these idols are, thither you hurry and stay. I have noticed you scarcely ever will go to the churches. And when you go, you hear never a word of the priest, Never will make the sign of the cross or bow to an image. But you look for old stones which in the wall may be built ; Scarcely you glance, as you pass, at the picture of Saint or Madonna, Yet if some statue be found thither you run in a joy. Not one word concerning the Pope, no desire to see him Has been uttered by you, though I besought you one day; And when I asked you to go and witness the grand crucifixion. You were silent as death, as if I crucified you. Once the priest came and sprinkled our dwelling with sanctified water. 42 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. I saw you laugh to yourself when you thought I did not see ; When I asked you that day if ever you went to confession. You ran out of the house, leaving me all to myself. If I but tell of the miracle wrought by some hallowed relics, Though you repress for my sake, you cannot hide what you are. Often you waft me away with the hand or shrug up your shoulders ; You belong not to us, all of your mind is afar Back in the old days of Rome, although you were born in the present — " Just at this moment she turned suddenly off with her glance, On the spot she was changed as her eyes caressed a small statue : " See! this boy is my choice if I dare choose of these stones ; Winged he moves while dreamful he looks, yet laughs at his mischief; He cannot find what he is, I have been just in his* place. Hear me ! At moments I seem to be born back into that old life ; When these idols I see, I have to love them myself.'' EGGE BOMA. 43 Closer she drew to my side and changed her tone to a whisper, For she feared her own voice when it burst out of lier heart, Lest it might utter the sin for which the whole world was once punished; Still she could not unsay what all her being had said; There at once I felt the kiss of her soul — she had found me, Just as I had found her, when with my heart- beats I cried: '** Call me by whatever name — be it heathen — I know not my title, Yet I know a delight which I have not felt before ; I cannot tell what it is, it came to me first with- out knowledge. Even far back in my years, longing I felt for a world Which had passed on its course and taken my heritage lovely; Groping amid the dim Past, stumbling around the wide globe. Over the ruins of Rome I fell in the midst of my journey. When I looked up I beheld just the fair world that I sought." " Tell then," she begged me, '« what is the festival you are now keeping? 44 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. For a festal look you have been showing all day." *' This," I replied, " is the holiday sweet of the Muses and Amor, Come now, let us go home, out of this marble to life." 3. The Roman Holiday. Stones with voices, columns with music, temples with language, Open your lips once more, speak me your spirit's still word! Threading your ancient piles, I always comeback to the modern. Hunting for aught far away, I have discovered myself. Give me the key-note of your great orchestra hewn out of marble That the thought and the word I may attune to your strain. What is that voice from the ruins ! its music sings out of the distance ! What is that form I behold! lovely its look turns to me. Is it the sound or the sight? O Rome, art thou song or a statue? I cannot tell what thou art, I do not know what I am. ECCE BOMA. 45 Let me be danced on thy billows of joy till I sink in thy ocean ! Listen ! already the strain ! See them ! the Goddesses come ! All the Muses are dancing a measure around Hippocrene, Whose clear waters return ever their shapes to the eye; All the fair forms are divinely set free from the prison of garments, With a light veil round the loins, gently they swav to the wind ; All the Nine Sisters of song are sharing one soul in their beauty, There is now not a Muse absent or slighting her joy. Often with hands joined together they swiftly encircle the fountain, Round it a garland they weave, which of their bodies is made ; Often by threes they glide through curves of mellifluous movement. In a succession of wreaths crowning the pearl- dropping spring ; Often they singly are leaping with graceful intoxication, Carving by gesture reliefs on the clear frieze of the air. 46 FBOBSUS BETB0BSU8, Always their bodies are singing in happy har- monious chorus, Singing by motion they are like the sweet stars of the sky. Always they turn to the fount that holds up be- fore them its mirror, In it they look at their forms, looking they show too the soul. Always they dwell in a temple of golden Olym- pian sunshine ; Say can the shade of a cloud ever pass over this world? Suddenly, madly into the group of innocent Muses Down lights Amor the Winged. Shivered to drops is the rill, Hippocrene grows turbid and restless, stirred by some passion. While the dancers have ceased dancinof their wreaths on the brink. How each Muse endeavors to take the boy to her bosom I Kisses his forehead and lips in a wild frenzy of love ! Amor, thou rogue of a Godling, all Nine at once are thy trophy. Each too being a Muse dowered with beauty divine ; ECCE BOMA. 47 Was not one quite enough for thy triumph, insatiable gallant? Must thou have all in thy might, meekly obey- ing thy nod? Barest thou here, in the ancient walls of the conqueress mighty. Make thy conquest too, swaying the body at will? Darest thou here, in the sacred shades of hundreds of churches, Build thy heathen shrine, guiding the soul by thy torch? Yes, so it is — each Muse has become the servant of Amor, Every note of her voice can but re-echo his name, Which has been sung by the marbles of Rome for ages on ages In her temples and halls, e'en it is heard from her tombs. Amor, smallest of Gods, is the tyrant of sunny Parnassus* Where he is perched on the peak, shooting his darts round the world. But behold! now he comes, the lord of mighty Quirinus, On whose seven hills high he triumphantly sits ; Still the deceiver, he hides his dart in the folds of the Muses ; 48 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. Whoever seeks their embrace, by his sly arrow is stung. O ye shrines and temples and statues, I feel your true worship, Now I have found out your heart, felt too its beat in my breast ; And ye musical fountains throbbing up over the city, Now I know whence ye come, what too ye say in your joy : All the world thou art, O Rome, and yet without Amor, All the world is no world, Rome too alone is not Rome. 4 Found. O, but the pleasure — and yet it is something far more than a pleasure Which I am having at Rome, strolling in paths of the past. What is the cause of this lofty attunement of all of the senses, Waking a music within unto the music with- out? And there is irresistible pressure of song in each heart-throb. Seeking to measure itself out of the old to the new. ECCE BOMA. 49 Give me the beat of thy numbers, O City, sing me the key-note Which may be heard underneath all thy great Present and Past. As to-day I sauntered along by the banks of the Tiber, An old lute-string I found dropped in the rub- bish of time; Out of the refuse I plucked the musical chord of the Ancients, Soon I had cleansed it of filth by a quick bath in the stream ; Home I hastened with joy, in triumph bearing the treasure, Fastened the string to a shell that in mj room hung unused, Lightly I touched the new-strung chord with the tip of my finger, Hearkened the while for the note which it might throb to the air, For, O Propertius, I thought it might whisper the name of thy beauty, Or invoke a fair shape loved by a lyrist of old; But another it lisped in words that were shock- ingly modern. Yet with a rhythmical stride tuned to the step of a Greek ; Only the name of a maiden it hums now the stubborn old lute-string;; 4 50 PB0B8US BETR0B8US, But her dear body it wraps in a soft echo of folds , So that she moves in the drapery ta'en from the Goddesses' wardrobe, When they once dwelt on the earth, roaming with men in the fields. 5. The Open Secret O ye talking marbles, galleries, palaces, ruins, What is the tale that I hear told by your voices of stone? Now before you I stand and joyously live in your presence. Question you much about Fate which over- took you of old. Speak from the heart of your hearts to the stranger your powerful secret, Which has drawn him to Rome wholly un- known to himself. All day long in your company strolling I eagerly hearken What to each other you say, what you are saying to me. And ye beautiful idols, let me interrogate briefly : Once driven out of the world, why now return ye to me? Say, does Amor always fly hither in search of his Psyche? ECCE BOMA. 51 Do they, coming in stealth, find one another in Rome? Look, a dark eye of the South has been kindled, I feel its fierce ardor Firing the air in its path with an invisible flame ; Coal I supposed to be black, but this jet of thine eye is far blacker ; Inside I know is a mine, see, too, the mine is on fire. Filled with wonder and warmth, I gaze at the spray of its sparkles, Down it drops at my glance, shutting me out with its lid. What is this mystery seen in the eyes — the darker the brighter? And the severer the burn, so much the more is the joy? Nought can I see now, under an arbor of long slender lashes Gracefully curving around, lie in concealment the orbs, While above there glistens a frieze of the whit- est Carrera Resting on two arches dark where is the portal of sight. Cursed is ever the luck of the lover, my torch is extinguished Just the moment it lit, held in the blaze of thine eye. 52 PB0B8US BETBORSUS. Now like a gleed that is dropped in its glow on the surface of water, It not only is quenched, but it is fuming in rage. Tender and fine is this flamelet of love, and pecu- liar in nature ; It must be kindled anew with every breath of the soul. Else it goes out with a puff that leaves us in dreariest darkness, Wherein demons run wild, feasting on hearts of despair. Seldom the flame will burn of itself, of its own precious matter ; Eye must look deep into eye, both are then kindled at once. What shall I do ? My look turns away to relieve disappointment. Seeks new objects of sight, rests on the form of a boy Who appears to shoot from a gleam and to glide into figure. On light pinions afloat — who can it be, do you think? Fresh-fledged Amor it is, eternally flying in mar- ble. Now more than ever he speeds, bent on the weightiest task. In the unsteady soft light of the Moon, the lamp lit for lovers. ECCE BOM A. 53 That with a sheet of white mist covers the court where we sit, Pallid Diarble has won a new life, and is gifted with motion : Amor now starts from his base, reaching aside for his bow, Carefully too he chooses a fine-pointed, well- feathered arrow From a full quiver of bolts slung at his side from a belt. Placed on the notch is the string, to the barb drawn back is the missile, Steady he taketh his aim, fixed on I know not what mark. Brave little Amor was floating in mild undulations of moonshine, Chirp sang the bow-string released — where has fallen the shaft ? Startled from dreams by the twang of the bow and the whiz of the arrow, To the maiden I turned speedily casting a glance, Spying out whether she too had seen the wild doings of Amor — Mad, mysterious boy, recklessly shooting his darts In the dim moonshine which charms the eye to a lull sympathetic, • Till dull flesh turns to sleep while the light soul is a dream. 54 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. Gods ! each ray of her eye has become a fleet fiery arrow, Through my poor bosom have passed quiver and bolts and the bow. Now I can tell you where that shaft of mad Amor has fallen, Why he moved from his base wrapped in the robes of the Moon. Colonnades Koman, by night and by day, what lessons ye teach me, As I wander in joy through all your forests of stone ! Now I know what yon mean, ye parks, museums and gardens. What ye galleries say, peopled with sculpture antique ; All of you hold in your hearts the beautiful secret of Nature, Which you whisper to me haunting your presence just now : " We are the servants of Amor, through us he discovers his Psyche, Each of them comes to our Rome out of the ends of the earth. Both of them longing, yet wholly unable to tell what they long for. Till they enter our home, still the old home of the Gods. When the two lovers behold us, then they have found one another. ECCE nOMA. 66 E'en in the church they embrace, taking it all to themselves." 6. August Roma and Roman Augusta. Speak to me, Eome, what art thou — heathen, barbarian, or christian ? Or perchance all three blended together in one? Three great Eomes I can see, the old and the new and the middle ; Tell me where I belong, I do not know it myself. When I look at these ruins and temples, I am an old Roman, But when the maiden appears, down to the present I drop Suddenly through two thousand years without ever stopping. Then I take breath from the fall, I am again on my feet. Two are my fair ones, august Roma and Roman Augusta, They together belong both in the name and the deed. One has beauty of greatness, the other has greatness of beauty. Each is the image of each, mother and daughter I love. But the time is too precious just now to praise the high mother, 56 PBOBSUS METROBSUS. Here is the daughter alone springing down into my boat, For g