Classic Poem

Think not, Calpurnia, that dreams
Shall bend me from my course. The concrete ill
Is better than false fears. To-day we urge
The war in Parthia, and Rome hath need
Of a strong hand at helm.
Could'st thou still love thy Cæsar if he hid
With blanchèd face from suppositious foes
Imaged in dreams, a Cæsar who would cower
At idle threat'nings of disastrous fate
With heart grown palpitant and fear-beseiged?
He would himself despise, know himself fall'n,
If any dim, phantasmal enemy
Should cow whom neither Spanish cavalcade,
Nor Afric spears, nor chariots of Gaul
Availed to 'fright.

'Tis now ten years agone
Since Cæsar's legions, having conquered Gaul,
To Britain sailed, but could not near the shore
In ships, so leapt full-armed into the sea.
The Britons met us with an equal zeal,
Engaged us fighting there, some to the knees,
Others to neck immersed. We gained the land—
Sore spent with wounds, with travail and hard strife,—
But he who stood the first upon that strand
Was Cæsar. On the frontier of the world
He stood in warrior-guise, Rome's latest word
Of conquest. Would'st thou now, divesting him
Of battle-gear, of soldier courage too,
Cage like a wren this bird of stormy wing
And bid him dream of when he soared aloft,
An eagle? . . . .

I would bind
With salutary law Rome's wayward heart,
Give strength and permanence to one great power,
The mother of a thousand lesser states.
“But can the thing be done?” Well may'st thou ask.
Can Cæsar's hand mix justice with his power,
Give tendency beneficent to might.
To overwhelm with law the incubus
Of wolfish greed, and stay the hands of those
Who rob the common purse? How Rome shall thrive
While these still live, even Cæsar cannot guess.
Trebonius, Cassius, Casca and the rest
Would tremble if they thought I deemed them foes,
But now as friends they meet me level-eyed,
Imagining they hide their jealousy.
They dare not come to me as open foes,
Unless, like coward wolves, they pool their nerve,
Thus trusting, each, the courage of the pack.

When Cæsar is no longer free in Rome
To go and come safe, and not warily,
But must go guarded, better were it far
His ghost were free to comrade with the dead,
To walk amid the hospitable years
A friend and guest of fame. Be Cæsar strong
Or bid him cease to be. Let not the past
For present weakness urge apologies,
But let him go forth free and masterful,
Walk ever thus untrammelled till he pass
Into the unplumbed deeps of history.
There nought shall bar the soul with boundaries
Or curb the mighty heart.