Classic Poem

Two thousand years yon sentry, black and bony,
Has at Pompeii's gate his watch been keeping;
His grisly fist still holds the spear!—What stony,
Cold, horrid leers o'er Death's grim face are creeping!

Now, up and down, a modern soldier paces,
Clad in the livery of the Bourbon flowers;
The borrowed sand-glass of the Roman traces
For him the lazy day's slow-moving hours.

And to his bony comrade speaks this other:—
‘Type of fidelity though all men name thee,
I find, in sooth, good cause, unhappy brother,
As thousand-years-old simpleton to blame thee!

‘Ha! thoughtest thou to stem that tide of battle—
The catapults of old Vesuvius roaring?
To roll the fiery squadrons back, whose rattle
Down on thy fated native town came pouring?

‘I, too, stood once where war's array was gleaming,
And freedom's flapping banner rustled o'er me!
And through the vale of the Abruzzi streaming,
The German ranks wound, like white walls, before me.

‘To breast the balls where battle raged the sorest,
As bulwark of my country, was I willing,—
Alas, if in the arcades of the forest
So sweet a nightingale had not been trilling!

‘Full on their ranks, whatever might betide me,
With desperate joy the foe had seen me rushing,—
Alas, if only, near the road beside me,
So beautiful a rose had not been blushing!

‘Flags wave and rumbling drums to battle muster;
Oh, sweet the doom, on fields of glory sinking!
Alas, had not so many a full-cheeked cluster,
Through hedges green, before my eyes been blinking!

‘Ay, of life's gifts is life itself the fairest!
And mine, O Italy, for thee I treasure!
And lo, the smile, on rose and grape thou wearest,
And song of nightingale confess thy pleasure!’

He said,—the thousand years' old guard, unshaken,
Presents his spear there at the city's entry!—
Grape, rose and nightingale may well awaken
Peculiar thoughts in that black, bony sentry.