Classic Poem

And lo! Adherbal, General-in-Chief,
The leader of the Slingers of the Isles,
Captain of Cohorts and Iberian slaves,
Captain of Libyan and Phaenician spears,
Captain of Greeks, Campanians and Gauls,
And many Volscians, famed for battle-cries,
Had lost a contest on Sicilian plains,
Leaving a thousand warriors dead or maimed,
And twenty elephants, the dread of Rome.
Yea, and his foolish plans had cost the State
A hundred tents of silk and many spears,
And bales of food and money for the troops
In two besieged towns, and camels, too,
While all the jeweled women of the camp,
Marching to render pleasure to the men,
Had fallen captives to the power of Rome,
To be the playthings of centurions.

And Carthage shook with anger, and the gods
Howled from their altars in terrific wrath,
Claiming the sacrifice of Adherbal,
Whom they forsook as ravens shun dry bones.
And all the people clamored to the gods.
And lo! the sapient council filled the streets
And halls judicial near the shrine of Bel,
There with unhallowed speed to judge the cause,
Dooming the vanquished general to the cross.

And he, Adherbal, paled before the speech,
But murmured not, because his soul was brave.
And as he sinned by sleeping with his slaves,
White Gallic women captured on the hills,
When over plans he should have worn his eyes,
He merited the doom, and courted it.
While people praised his valor near to death,
And crowded near to hear his dying wish,
Which would be granted him by antique law,
If that he begged not life; and Adherbal
Arose, with sensuous smiles upon his lips
And passionate gleams of fire within his eyes,
And cried aloud: " Honored and holy law!
I will abide by thee and have no fear.
The boon thou grantest, ere my days are snapped
Asunder like a rotten reed, is this:
Grant me the secrecy of purple tents,
Bring me Campanian wine with meat and figs,
And until dawn leave me in guarded peace
With yonder lustrous maiden of the Gauls,
Whom I with mine own hand in battle seized
When she had pierced my leathers with a dart
And conquered me. I there, her conqueror,
Let me but hide the bristles of my beard
Upon the rounded whiteness of her breasts,
And at the hour appointed I will die,
Loving the law and faithful to the land! "
And all the people shouted: " Grant the wish! "
And it was granted.
Through the balmy night
The fallen chief made revel with the maid,
And bade her note his valor on the cross.
And when the dawn, with its sweet pulse of light,
Had throbbed through darkness to a perfect day,
He was led forth and nailed unto a cross.
Now, in the horde that compassed him about,
Was an old warrior, who had warred in Spain
When young Adherbal first sniffed blood on fields,
And in the panic of a battle's heart
He, crushed and trampled on by yelling hosts,
Lay stricken down and was about to die,
When lo! Adherbal, witnessing his plight,
Charged on the assailers, and with mighty blows
Saved the poor man and vanquished on that day.
And the old soldier's mind was full of this.
He saw again the swift, tumultuous scene
Pass in his eyes, and there his savior hung,
Nailed to a cross to linger in the sun,
The prey of birds, and all his soul rebelled.
And when the throngs were busy at the sight,
He crouched and poised a javelin in his hand,
And with unerring speed above the heads
Of all the multitude it shrilly whirred
Deep to the tortued bosom of the chief,
Who cried aloud: " Bel bless thee, friend! " and died,
While all the cheated people turned in wrath
And tore the soldier's body into shreds.