What they say and what thou sayest I hold
False. Though thou hast wept as woman, howled as wolf,
Above our dead, thou art hale and whole. And now
Behoves thee rise again as Christ our God,
Vicarious Christ, and cast as flesh away
This grief from off thy godhead. I and thou,
One, will set hand as never God hath set
To the empire and the steerage of the world.
Do thou forget but him who is dead, and was
Nought, and bethink thee what a world to wield
The eternal God hath given into thine hands
Which daily mould him out of bread, and give
His kneaded flesh to feed on. Thou and I
Will make this rent and ruinous Italy
One. Ours it shall be, body and soul, and great
Above all power and glory given of God
To them that died to set thee where thou art—
Throned on the dust of Cæsar and of Christ,
Imperial. Earth shall quail again, and rise
Again the higher because she trembled. Rome
So bade it be: it was, and shall be.
ALEXANDER
Son,
Art thou my son?
CÆSAR
Whom should thy radiant Rose
Have found so fit to ingraff with, and bring forth
So strong a scion as I am?
ALEXANDER
By my faith—
Wherein, I know not—by my soul, if that
Be—I believe it. God forgot his doom
When he thou hast slain drew breath before thee
CÆSAR
God
Must needs forget—if God remember. Now
This thing thou hast loved, and I that swept him hence
Held never fit for hate of mine, is dead,
Wilt thou be one with me—one God? No less,
Lord Christ of Rome, thou wilt be.
ALEXANDER