Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 7/The boy martyr
THE BOY MARTYR.
(NERO IMPERATOR.)
I.
Now that the bull with gilded horns was stricken by the priest,
The arena swam with human blood and with the blood of beast;
The tigers felled, the leopards stabbed, the huge snakes mashed to death,
Resting awhile to fan themselves, the multitudes take breath.
High up above the curtain-roof the great white-rose clouds blew,
High up above the circling seats the whirling pigeons flew;
Below in arching shadows cool the children hide and play,
No warning growl, nor hiss, nor moan can Roman boy dismay.
The sand was levelled smooth and dry, the babble once more swells,
The gladiators cut and gashed are resting in their cells,
The tridents and the gory nets, the axes and the swords,
Are lying in a dusty heap beside the hooks and cords.
The people laugh;—the senator, the juggler, and the mime,
The cobbler and the augur’s man, the actors jest and rhyme;
The bath slaves and the soldiers sit shouldering seat by seat,
The drover and the fisherman, the thief and boxer meet.
The mountain palaces of Rome, the Forum’s busy walks,
Have sent their wicked thousands here, and each of bloodshed talks;
The Tyber’s bare, the temple’s shut, the baths are empty all,
There only is one sleeping slave in Cæsar’s golden hall.
The purple awning over head, three acres Tyrian wove,
Flaps breezily as Auster now whispers with breath of love;
And Nero tired, leans back to rest on his great ivory seat,
His robe unloosed, his pimps and slaves basking around his feet.
Not one of all those thousands there thought of the death-doomed men
Who lay—hands bound—with bleeding backs in the subterranean den;
Nor of that little Christian boy, brought from the chalky shore,
Where Dorobernium’s fort looks down upon the channel’s roar.
Weary of pleasure was the Plebs, weary the Cæsar too,
In vain the slaves from swaying roof rain the sweet scented dew;
The gladiators, quaffing draughts of myrrh and Sabine wine,
Felt that a gloom was on the Plebs, and dread the fatal sign.
For storms had kept the corn fleet back, the Plebs was hard to please,
From Cæsar to the meanest churl, not one seemed at his ease;
All day the thumbs had been turned down, howe’er a man might fight,
For hungry folks are sour and sad, and full of spleen and spite.
They murmur for some newer thing, some combination wild,
A snake and wild cat, or a cub, to grapple with a child;
Or ostriches and antelopes—here Nero rose and cried
For some fresh combat man and beast that ne’er had yet been tried.
II.
The lituus and the tuba roar, the soldiers’ drums resound,
The Nubian cymbals clash and chime the amphitheatre round;
As open fly a dozen doors, and robed in red and blue,
The gladiators doomed to death come pacing two and two.
With shining limbs and faces bruised, and strong arms white with scars,
The cestus-wearers march and sing their noisy hymns to Mars;
The netters and the light-armed lads, the agile targeteers,
Syrian and Greek, Arab and Gaul, heedless of hiss or cheers.
But lo! a whisper, Nero stands, and waves his Lydian lyre,
Made of Parnassus laurel wood, and strung with golden wire;
Again the gladiators pass through the Vomitory’s door,
And the dull arena’s ring of blood is silent as before.
What Libyan lions now with manes drifting upon the sand,
With lolling tongues and stealthy walk, till chafed by blow and brand;
Or German boars to gore and rush chasing the bleeding man;
Or mighty snakes to wind and leap as only such things can?
But no! an Epicure’s surprise—voluptuous cruelty,
A Briton’s child to struggle with a thief from Thessaly,
A brawny giant scarred and burnt, covered with dust and blood,
His feet all red as vineyard men’s with the grapes’ purple flood.
The boy was pale with dungeon gloom, yet was he still and stern,
Smiling at bony Death, who shook o’er him a funeral urn;
His father dead, his brothers slaves, his town burnt to the ground,
His tribe destroyed, his country lost, his mother chained and bound.
The horns and drums and shrieking flutes burst forth together now,
The giant swung his weapons round and wiped his crimson brow;
David when trampling on the bear looked like this Christian youth,
With such a halo round his face of holy love and truth.
The pagan gods frown on the Greek, his blows are fierce but wild,
Slowly his heart yields up its life unto this mere weak child;
He strikes with giant force, but lo! he bites the gory sand,
The unfleshed trident snaps and falls from the dead giant’s hand.
The people raise their thumbs erect, of mercy the glad sign,
Nero stands up and waves his wands that like the sun-beams shine,
“Curse Christ and live, boy!” he cried: the lad looked up,
Pushing fierce back with angry hand the flatterer’s proffered cup.
“Curse Christ and live!” ten thousand cried—and twenty thousand then,
The boy put one foot on the dead, and braved the howling men;
“Christ and his cross alone!” he shouted, pallid but stern and cool,
Then Nero rose, and screaming cried, “To the lions with this fool!”
A roar—a leap—a shaking snarl, an angry growl and tear,
A gnash of gory teeth, a wave of bloody, dripping hair,
A dreadful shriek that rose above the shouts of countless men,
As Moorish gladiators drove the beast back to his den.
Sudden the death, and yet the boy had time one glance to see
Of the golden gates of Paradise opening silently,
And beckoning hands, and snowy wings, and odours as of balm;
Then storm and dark that sudden changed to an eternal calm.
The mountain ant-hill’s on the move—the people rise to go,
Through all the arches, from each bench, the human rivers flow;
Nero, forgetting crime so small, drove to his golden home,—
But God did not forget it—no—go look ye now at Rome.
T. W.