Classic Poem

Look on that picture, and on this. . . . Behold
The Face that frown'd the rights of realms away;
The imperial forehead, filleted with gold;
The arrogant chin, the lips of frozen clay.
This is the later Caesar, whose great day
Was one long sunset in blood-ruby rolled,
Till, on an ocean-island lone and gray,
It sank unblest, forgotten, dead, and cold.
Yea, this is he who swept from plain to plain,
Watering the harvest-fields with crimson rain;
This is the Eagle who on garbage fed.
Turn to the wall the pitiless eyes. Art, Thought,
Law, Science, owed the monster less than nought;
And Nature breath'd again when he was dead.