Classic Poem

Rome has been dead these many hundred years—
Of all the might which thrust her bronze-clad men,
Clamoring
And storming to the ends of all the earth,
Not strength enough is left today to lift
A locust's wing.

And yet she lives forever. Would you speak,
She offers you the word. And would you build,
On her pages
Lies beauty deathless. Would you make a law,
Rome whispered in Napoleon's ear a code
For the ages.

In overwhelming chaos everywhere
Slouched the stupendous years, unnamed, unnoted.
Even Greece afar
Gave them but moon-guides, till stern Rome, aware,
Ordered their march and gave the echoing world
The calendar.

There is a curving road from Engadine
Whose Roman stones attest the centuries.
Roman tools
Made safe between its wild and steep escarpments
The traveler of today. Forget the Caesars?—
Rome still rules.