Classic Poem

ROME .

Imbecile brute, monster of blood and crime,
A revel of slaughter, infamy and pain,
'T was thy atrocious, grand and impious reign
That soiled the laurels of Caesar in Rome's shrine.

Yet what a marvelous festal life sublime!
Oceans of gore did the arenas stain;
With what Imperial pride thou didst disdain,
In rapine, incest, lust, the Fates and Time!

But history, in its calm, impartial page,
Has doomed thy deeds to an undying shame,
But I, a dreamer, doubt the impeccable sage,
And openly avow I love thy name,
For in this vile and more degenerate age,
I find no sinners worthy of thy fame.