Classic Poem

The bare line of the hill
Shows Roman and
A sense of Rome hangs still
Over the land.

So that one looks to see
Steel gleam, to hear
Voices outflung suddenly
Of the challenger.

Yet boom of the may-fly
The loudest thing
Is of all under the sky
Of the wide evening.

And the thing metal most
The pond's last sheen
Willow shadow crossed
But still keen.

How long, how long before
The ploughland lose
Sense of that old power?
The winds, the dews

Of twice ten hundred years
Have dimmed no jot
Of Roman thought there, fears,
Triumphs unforgot.

Has Caesar any thought
In his new place, of lands
Far west, where cohorts fought,
Watched at his commands?

Carausius, Maximus,
Is all let slip, then why
Does Rome inherit thus
Dominate memory

So royally that Here
And Now are nothing known?
The regal and austere
Mantle of Rome is thrown

As of old—about the walls
Of hills and the farm—the fields.
Scabious guards the steeps,
Trefoil the slopes yield.