For Brutus spoke, and Coriolanus fell,
And Spartacus defied the she-wolf’s power,
In the great actor’s high meridian hour.
How as the noble Moor he wooed and wed
His bride of Venice; how his o’erwrought soul,
Tortured and racked and wildly passion-tossed,
Was whirled, resisting, to the fatal goal,
Doting, yet dooming! Every trait was true;
He lived the being that the poet drew.
Room for the aged Cardinal! Once more