Classic Poem

(A Fragment)

George Washington used to drive
through the hills of Virginia
in a costly carosse ordered from London
painted sea-green, the doors and panels
curling into gold just lifted from the sea.

Poor Washington! when he died
his tomb was cut to his measure
of antique marble. You may see him still
in the forecourt of the Capitol
his toga over his knees,
noble, republican, Roman.

I knew his family well,
having been born on land which the General
somehow or other got out of Lord Fairfax
and gave to his brothers. I knew them all —
the granddaughter of Betty Lewis,
the descendants of Charles, of Samuel's six consorts —
particularly I knew Sheldon Washington
whose father had been born at Mount Vernon.
They were none of them in the least Roman,
though Sheldon might, had he known Latin,
have quoted Petronius at thirteen:
Iunonem meam iratam habeam
si unquam me meminerim virginem fuisse . . .