Classic Poem

Before Pompeii's forum's triumph-portal
That welcomed conquerors home, wide open flying,
A sun-browned Lazarone — happy mortal! —
Calm as philosophy in dust, is lying.

A marble block — strange pillow! — lies beneath him;
Well might a God that pedestal be gracing! —
A laurel's waving boughs with shadows wreath him,
And shadow-leaves across his nose are chasing.

The day is long, and so, at times, it chances
That divers thoughts infest his brain's dark chamber;
Round the old stone, like mosses, grow his fancies,
And up the laurel's shaft like ivy clamber:

" Fresh tracks, along the lava-pavement yonder,
Tell that the Triumphator's car just passed here;
He cannot be far up the street; I wonder
If yet I might not catch him, running faster!

" A little word, that I might tell him, haunts me,
And whispers: " Run, o'ertake his car of glory. "
But, leave this cozy bed! — No! — if he wants me,
He may just come himself and hear my story!

" Friend! (I would say) why all this pomp and flurry?
And why perched up on that big car so proudly?
A shame those noble steeds to sweat and worry!
Shame, those good lungs to spoil, that yell so loudly!

" Why through the world thy long and weary marching?
To get, returning, these poor laurel-branches?
Lo, friend, from this blue sky, above me arching,
What laurels Heaven's free grace on my head launches!

" Why all thy wars, since nobody proposes
To steal this broad, blue heaven above us bending,
Blue sea, or grapes, or nightingales, or roses? —
What else with sword and shield is worth defending?

" Thy losses and thy victories both give warning
Of new and sterner strifes thy prowess tasking;
The load I carried to the coast this morning,
Lets me lie here all day in sunshine basking!

" Thy stately palace, too? — Is heaven not ample?
Why needest thou wall out the lovely vision?
And what means pleasure-journeying, but to trample
Beneath one's feet God's fields and flowers Elysian?

" Why climb the orange-trees with needless labor?
When ripe they'll fall into thy lap, full early!
Why thrust thy nose among the rose-briars, neighbor?
The scent is bound to seek the nose quite clearly!

" This stone and I are comrades close and cosy,
Here day and night inseparably lying;
His surplus coolness on my frame bestows he,
I in return my surplus heat supplying.

" To lie forever here — Oh, 'twere entrancing!
The smoke-cloud of Vesuvius poised before me,
Birds wheeling by in flocks, green shadows dancing,
And golden clouds and sun-cars sweeping o'er me!

" And yon blue sea with sails like snowy pinions!
Lord, it is good that thou to all gav'st motion,
That all things fairest in thy wide dominions,
All come to me — clouds, birds, and waves of ocean!

" Tis well that all these men of foreign nations,
Come of themselves to stump and stammer by me,
That I need not to their far habitations,
To Russia, Germany, and England hie me!

" See where my king drives by his greys, three double,
Coach and caparison of golden splendor!
I lie in dust, and save myself the trouble
Of falling in the dust, respects to render!

" Here at my ease I lie, in sun and shower;
(To dry one's self's a bliss ye know not, brothers!)
Till to enjoy Heaven's long siesta-hour
I go — nay, God be thanked, am borne by others!

" No time in going to church need I be spending!
For see, the priests in pomp sweep by before me,
With banner, cross and holy bands attending;
Whereby some blessing needs must hover o'er me!

" When, as my father's father did before me,
The maccaroni o'er my head I'm raising,
My opened mouth turned to the heaven high o'er me,
Must not my eyes, too, friend, be heavenward gazing?

" And when, in ocean's mirror-bath, at even,
The moon and stars below me float suspended,
I feel as if, that hour, the very heaven
In its benignity to me descended.

" Say, has my prince a vassal-train so splendid
As I, with clouds and stars and billows sparkling,
With men and flowers and birds all day attended,
Till I dismiss them all when night is darkling?

" All beauties that the face of earth attire
In one bright wheel must round and round go sweeping,
While I lie here, contented, and admire,
My place unmoved as earth's own centre keeping!

" And were there yet one thing my heart could wish for,
'T would be that they were snakes, these maccaroni,
And came to me, that now I have to fish for, —
Completely blest were then the Lazarone!"

So joins to-day's dark path, by mystic power,
The bright ancestral track, renowned in story,
Like to the slave, who, in the triumph-hour,
Followed the Roman conqueror's car of glory.

A jewelled crown of gold, with sunlight vying,
He bears, but wears not, through the triumph-portal,
To the intoxicated victor crying:
Son of the dust, remember, thou art mortal!

So this one seemed. — Was it the murmur creeping
Among the leaves, his dreamy thoughts enchanted?
Or was the laurel-tree, in noontide sleeping,
By the old Triumphator's spirit haunted?

But not for much would I have missed beholding
The laurel o'er that face its garlands flinging;
The ragged garment, that warm heart enfolding,
To the cold splendor of the marble clinging!