Classic Poem

Happy the man who so hath Fortune tried
That likewise he her poor relation knows:
To whom both much is given and denied:
To riches and to poverty he owes
An equal debt: of both he makes acquist,
And moderate in all his mind he shows.
But ill befalls the man who hath not missed
Aught of his heart's desires, in plenty nursed:
For evil things he knows not to resist:
And, aiding their assault, himself is worst
Against himself, with self-destructive rage
But states are with another evil cursed,
For falling into luxury with age,
They burst in tumults, swollen with bloody shame,
Which old exploits aggrieve and not assuage.
Past temperance doth the present feast inflame;
Past grandeur like too heavy armour weighs:
Great without virtue is an evil name
Rome, that was this world's head in ancient days,
Proud, lustrous, bloody, glorious witch and queen,
Beheld by all the nations with amaze,
The marble city, the hills of golden sheen,
Being fallen now into her shameless age,
With limy ruin overspread her scene.
Old Tiber wound through her waste heritage:
Of bygone fame her virtue was the spoil:
Who seemed best was the worst bird in her cage; —
That Vicar, who should others' sins assoil,
The Pope upon his throne, blazing with gold
And purple, which his monstrous crimes did soil,
Bursting with pride, in ignorance thickly rolled,
Void both of knowledge and of charity,
Seemed the last plague poured on the world grown old:
He seemed the very Antichrist to be,
Or else a statue and an idol dumb,
In God's own temple sitting wickedly
Thus Gerbert, ere his day of power was come,
Had oftentimes in fearless words declared
In Rheims before the Council, touching Rome:
Gerbert, who now was pope: and now who dared
To notify his reign by acts severe
Against the abused time, and change prepared:
But when he gan the sanctuary to clear,
He was by death prevented in strange way:
And impious vice her front again gan rear.
Scarce had he gained that seat for his brief stay,
And straightway his stern rule commenced then,
When Mano reached that city of high sway,
Turning his course westward from east again,
To meet his former friend and master there,
After those wars 'gainst Greek and Saracen.
And with him good Sir Thurold did repair
From mountainous Spoletum through the vales
Which sink to Tiber's channel winding fair
With them were others more: but me the gales
Of Fortune wafted not to Tiber's shore:
Sickness withheld: close furled were my sails
And whilst I was delayed in trouble sore,
Mano and Thurold with great Gerbert met,
And made such joy that never might be more:
For Mano seemed the grievance to forget
Of Blanche's marriage, nor the part therein
Which Gerbert bore to hold in memory yet
And Gerbert saw his cause in arms begin
To prosper, and to issue toward success
The plans that stood his spacious mind within:
Alas, full soon the chance must be to express
Which that restored friendship broke again,
And of their counsels made unhappiness
Sir Mano honest was, as I maintain,
Even in that thing which brought to him his fall:
But honesty in fight with fate is vain.
Him, howso, whom so lately with the pall
Now with that pluvial he saw magnified,
Which habits him who is the head of all,
Well pleased was he: and Gerbert bade him ride
At his right hand unto the Lateran,
Showing him all the mighty city's pride
Then came the nobles, and the people ran
To hail the knights who had wrought victory:
The Praefect there, and every high-placed man,
Who bore the signs of Roman majesty,
The Consuls, the Decarchons: through the town
They marched all in a royal pageantry:
So that this light of honour and renown
Brightest of all it shone that Mano saw:
The occasion of his friend gave him the crown,
And the drawn lot seemed the like lot to draw.