Borgia Poem by Maurice Rowlands

Mother to the Child of Rome
A child that bore a child
Eyes of hazel
Blondest hair so wild
Poison from her fair white hands
To the goblets of the traitors
Of Italia’s darkest lands

Etched within the sands
Of the banks of the Aniene
Show the trails of her frailest gown
And blood from her family’s hands
As the grandest statues standing proud
Bear the slightest bitter frown

Lucrezia
A Borgia with the thread
Of the name running blue through her veins
And out of many necks as red
Not Giovanni or Alfonso
But indeed by all who said
Peretto and sweet Pantasilea
Washed up by the tides of the Tiber
Joined the army of her dead