Rising from the purpling water
With her brow of stone, Sprite or nymph or Triton's daughter, Rising from the purpling water,
Capri sits alone— Sits and looks across the billow
Now the day is done Resting on her rocky pillow Sits and looks across the billow
Toward the setting sun. Misty visions trooping sadly
Glimmer through her tears, Shapes of men contending madly,— Misty visions trooping sadly
From the vanished years. Here Tiberius from his palace
On the headland gray Hurls his foes with gleeful malice, Proud Tiberius at his palace
Murd'ring men for play. There Lamarque's recruits advancing
Scale yon rocky spot, 'Neath the moon their bright steel glancing, See Lamarque's recruits advancing
Through a storm of shot. But today the goat bells' tinkle
And the vespers chime, Vineyards shade each rock-hewn wrinkle, And today the goat bells' tinkle
Marks a happier time. Soft the olive groves are gleaming,
War has found surcease, And as Capri sits a-dreaming Soft the olive groves are gleaming,
Crowning her with peace. —Walter Taylor Field

PALLADIUM

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow
Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; And Hector was in Ilium, far below,
And fought, and saw it not—but there it stood! It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight
Round Troy,—but while this stood, Troy could not fall. So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.
Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;
We visit it by moments, ah, too rare! Men will renew the battle in the plain
Tomorrow; red with blood will Xanthus be; Hector and Ajax will be there again,
Helen will come upon the wall to see. Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,
And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, And fancy that we put forth all our life,
And never know how with the soul it fares. Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,
Upon our life a ruling effluence send; And when it fails, fight as we will, we die,
And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. —Matthew Arnold

AFTER CONSTRUING

Lord Caesar, when you sternly wrote
The story of your grim campaigns And watched the ragged smoke-wreath float
Above the burning plains, Amid the impenetrable wood,
Amid the camp's incessant hum At eve, beside the tumbling flood,
In high Avaricum, You little recked, imperious head,
When shrilled your shattering trumpets' noise, Your frigid sections would be read
By bright-eyed English boys. Ah me! Who penetrates today
The secret of your deep designs? Your sovereign visions, as you lay
Amid the sleeping lines? The Mantuan singer pleading stands;
From century to century He leans and reaches wistful hands,
And cannot bear to die. But you are silent, secret, proud,
No smile upon your haggard face, As when you eyed the murderous crowd
Beside the statue's base. I marvel: That Titanic heart
Beats strongly through the arid page, And we, self-conscious sons of art,
In this bewildering age, Like dizzy revellers stumbling out
Upon the pure and peaceful night, Are sobered into troubled doubt,
As swims across our sight, The ray of that sequestered sun,
Far in the illimitable blue,— The dream of all you left undone,
Of all you dared to do. —Arthur Christopher Benson

[A ROMAN MIRROR]

They found it in her hollow marble bed,
There where the numberless dead cities sleep,
They found it lying where the spade struck deep
A broken mirror by a maiden dead. These things—the beads she wore about her throat,
Alternate blue and amber, all untied,
A lamp to light her way, and on one side
The toll men pay to that strange ferry-boat. No trace today of what in her was fair!
Only the record of long years grown green
Upon the mirror's lustreless dead sheen,
Grown dim at last, when all else withered there Dead, broken, lustreless! It keeps for me
One picture of that immemorial land,
For oft as I have held thee in my hand
The chill bronze brightens, and I dream to see A fair face gazing in thee wondering wise
And o'er one marble shoulder all the while
Strange lips that whisper till her own lips smile
And all the mirror laughs about her eyes. It was well thought to set thee there, so she
Might smooth the windy ripples of her hair
And knot their tangled waywardness or ere
She stood before the queen Persephone. And still it may be where the dead folk rest
She holds a shadowy mirror to her eyes,
And looks upon the changelessness, and sighs
And sets the dead land lilies in her hand. —Rennell Rodd

[THE DOOM OF THE SLOTHFUL]