Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE VISITOR (THE SHADE OF MARCUS AURELIUS GAZES ON MODERN ROME), by EDEN PHILLPOTTS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Jupiter stator! Thou art dead indeed Last Line: Throbbing to nobler music. Subject(s): Marcus Aurelius (121-180); Rome, Italy | ||||||||
JUPITER STATOR! thou art dead indeed, And with thee all the forms and states and shows Of Rome have vanished. Whither art thou fled, Thou city of the Caesars? Can it be These splintered splendours of the past are all Old Chronos hath not crunched? The Forum lies Upon his plate, the fragments of a meal, And round about there's nothing further left But orts and shadows. All the seven hills Are buried deep in dwellings strangely piled Against each other; temples, palaces Alike have sunk, and toward the mountains one Must lift his eyes to kindle memory. Soracte standeth where it ever stood, And still the Alban hills ascend to show The footsteps of the morning; but for Rome Morning hath drifted on eternal night, And but a shrunken ant-heap marks the place Where the world's mistress reigned. Yet still it holds That men lift up above the herd sometimes, And dominate as they were wont to do. I mark new mounted heroes spring aloft Worthy of bronze, and lesser monitors Have won to marble. Rome hath leaders yet; And here's a sight familiar to my eyes: Trajan's fair column; but the emperor Doth crown his pile no more. Instead I see A sombre shape upon the pillar perched A mighty form, and in his hands are keys. Who was the key-bearer, and who is this Thrust here upon my own memorial? They set it up after that I had passed From the great task of living. It was meant To tell the cruel, painful wars we made, On Marcomanni by the Danube's stream, And standeth still to show what men could do When Antonines wore purple. Art hath wrought This masterpiece, and still I joy to see Jupiter Pluvius, with outspread wing, Shake from his dusky pinions and his hair The fragrant thunder shower on my parched host. A noble monument; but where am I? And where is Faustina, my wondrous spouse, Whose charactera tragic mystery, Mixed by the gods for their own purposeled The woman to forget she was a queen? 'Tis no surpassing wonder thus to find Her flitted hence; truly her consort's side Irked her a little in life; but where am I? What night-black, dark-robed sword-bearer is this, That swung a blade for Rome, and now, it seems, Usurps my pillar? 'Tis a verity That oftentimes I thought and sometimes wrote, When practising my little store of Greek, My private mind upon the worth of fame. 'Tis true I scorned the windy shout of men, And rated it but as the hollow howl Of brumal tempest through a naked wood; 'Tis true the roar of multitudes to me Spoke but the language of a sudden storm, Or riotous march of mad, white-headed waves, Panting along the indifferent feet of earth; Yet Fate hath willed my pillar should outlast Some flight of years; and I was counted more Than this uplifted stone. A man named Paul Now darkles where aforetime they set me; But whence was he and how served he the State In such wise that his glory, like the sun, Hath melted my brief taper from its place? Shadow of high Olympus, shades of those Celestial ones who reigned in human hearts, And led the conquerors of all the earth, Here's a wild jest for thoughtful ghosts to mark! He was a Christian; yea, that stubborn folk Who buzzed and troubled, like the nightly gnats Bred of Campagna's marsheseven that cult We whipped and hindered; they have won their day And set their heroes on our pedestals! Paul standeth for their conquest and their Christ, A poet slain upon a Roman cross In some far province of the troubled East For telling truth before that it was ripe. And I myself lived long enough to see How truth grown ripe grows false. That biting thing Is precious only in the tart and green, For ripe and sweet to every mouth, 'tis rotten. Now all our ruined state doth make a show For Christians. So are the tables turned; And where the beasts on Roman holidays Set free their souls and reddened all the sands Of yonder grass-grown space, to-day they thrive And peep about our roofless palaces And set our broken marbles in their aisles, And patch our temples for a sort of lure To draw the Nations. Even my own mild face, Cut upon many a stone and sometime loved By those I toiled for, doth lack-lustre stare, With tinkered nose or mended brow or ear, Upon the people; and far greater yet The images of long-forgotten gods Throng the assemblies in their stony pomp And gaze through marble lids upon the past, Unconscious of the life that creeps about Their art-created immortality. Oh, Christ, thy hierarchs have used thee ill To break a peaceful grave, defraud the dead And turn thy human rede of love to man Into a battle cry that drove in hate And agony and long-drawn, moral death Two thousand years of fooled humanity. Yea, they have prostituted thee and raped Thy virgin message till at last it stands No more than slave to many infamies. Twice thieves, from Gods and Cæsars they have stole: The keys of heaven they have filched away And given them to yonder fisherman; While from the imperial forehead they have torn Pontifex Maximus, our proudest star. Now Pontifex is Cæsar, but no more Is Cæsar Pontifex; and even as They feigned their Christ ascended from the grave And lived once more, so this our fallen state, Our Roman Empire that went down to death, Doth peep again to pose a little while And cry out vain decretals to the wind, And linger in this pit of pestilence Men call the Papacy. An ancient cock Yet struts his narrow dunghill up and down, And shaketh moulting wings and croweth shrill, Well knowing that his tyrant voice hath sunk To withered pipe and his blood-rusted spurs Have fallen off for ever. Oh, thou Christ, In the dark shadow of thy gallows tree They've battened and grown fat and flourished long On persecuted reason. They have stilled The solemn heart-beat of philosophy, And trampled on the golden time and flung Truth to the lions; they have turned the world From her rejoicing journey; they have fouled The highest places of man's intellect With their base excrement of forged lies; They have made fast their adamant doors, and laughed At ruination as it swept to drown The best that men had fought for until now. So all that Hellas taught the world's forgot! Ye shadows of the mightiest, shades of those Who led my youth, and lifted my young soul To purity and patience, wake and gaze. Behold how time hath been revenged on us! And time anon will be revenged again, Since vengeance only doth belong to time; And 'tis most sure that, as the breath expired From vanished myths, so it must also leave This dwindling falsehood when the sun shall rise. Already a stark light doth shiver cold Above its slumber; deep uneasiness Hath set a troubled hand upon its eyes; For light is roaming on the mountainslight That slays the owl-eyed haunters of the dusk, And drives to den the children of the dark. Habet! The Christian has it; Dawn's white steel Is at his bosom; it shall be with him As where yon stone barbarian droops and sinks, And fills his hollow shield with falling blood. So this old faith must die, and make an end Less lovely than the Gaul's. Some flight of years And the inevitable, tireless hand Gropes and grips fast, and draws it gently down Down into Hades, where the earlier gods, Their duty done, still sit on ghostly thrones, And show the wondrous picture of man's mind In its beginnings and its worshippings, Its strivings, strugglings by the endless road Upward and onward. Creeds are still the signs That mark our human path; and this shall stand, To point into that fateful labyrinth Where man hath wasted precious centuries, And barred the way of living liberty His leaders trod before the Christian came. Fear not, thou fleeting faith; time promises Thee euthanasia; they who watch thy end Will add no pang thereto. Not on thy lap Shall they be nurtured; not from thy shrunk breast May the clean spirits of mankind to come Drink life. Upon thy final citadels The hail of truth is falling; earthly power Has vanished from thee, and thy cob-webbed orb And sceptre soon must drop. Some span of years Shall see thee follow the Olympians; Whereon thy domes and soaring palaces Will take their turn as show, and nevermore Shall man within thy holy places kneel. Keep thou my pillar, Paul; I grudge it not, Thou lion-hearted spirit. Stand thou there Until old Chronos flits along his way To the next perch; and then upon this wreck I'll gaze again to see what's doing more, When Liberty shall welcome other men, Sweep present hopes and values off the earth And set the heartstrings of posterity Throbbing to nobler music. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS ROMAN ELEGIES by JOSEPH BRODSKY ROMAN DIARY: 1951 by JOHN CIARDI VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 7. ROME by SARA TEASDALE ROMANESQUE ARCHES by TOMAS TRANSTROMER AN APARTMENT WITH A VIEW by JOHN CIARDI MANIFEST DESTINY by JORIE GRAHAM RUINES OF ROME by JOACHIM DU BELLAY |
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