Roma Poem by Silas Weir Mitchell

RIPE hours there be that do anticipate
The heritage of death, and bid us see,
As from the vantage of eternity,
The shadow-symbols of historic fate.

As o'er some Alpine summit's lonely steep,
Blinding and terrible with spears of light,
Hurling the snows from many a shaken height,
The storm-clad spirits of the mountain sweep,—

Thus, in the solitude where broodeth thought,
Torn from rent chasms of the soundless past,
Go by me, as if borne upon the blast,
The awful forms which time and man have wrought.

Swift through the gloom each mournful chariot rolls,
Dim shapes of empire urge the flying steeds,
Featured with man's irrevocable deeds,
Robed with the changeful passions of men's souls.

Ethereal visions pass serene in prayer,
Their eyes aglow with sacrificial light;
Phantoms of creeds long dead, their garments bright,
Drip red with blood of torture and despair.

In such an hour my spirit did behold
A woman wonderful. Unnumbered years
Left in her eyes the beauty born of tears,
And full they were of fatal stories old.

The trophies of her immemorial reign
The shadowy great of eld beside her bore;
A broidery of ancient song she wore,
And the glad muses held her regal train.

Still hath she kingdom o'er the souls of men;
Dear is she always in her less estate.
The sad, the gay, the thoughtful, on her wait,
Praising her evermore with tongue and pen.

Stately her ways and sweet, and all her own;
As one who has forgotten time, she lives,
Loves, loses, lures anew, and ever gives,
She who all misery and all joy hath known.

If thou wouldst see her, as the twilight fails,
Go forth along the ancient street of tombs,
And when the purple shade divinely glooms
High o'er the Alban hills, and night prevails,

If then she is not with thee while the light
Glows over roof and column, tower and dome,
And the dead stir beneath thy feet, and Rome
Lies in the solemn keeping of the night,—

If then she be not thine, not thine the lot
Of those some angel rescues for an hour
From earth's mean limitations, granting power
To see as man may see when time is not.