Poems Sigourney 1827/Pompey's Statue
POMPEY'S STATUE,
AT WHOSE PEDESTAL JULIUS CÆSAR FELL, IS STILL PRESERVED
IN THE PALAZZO SPADÆ, AT ROME.
Cold and inanimate!—Would thou couldst ope
Thy marble lips, and tell what thou hadst seen
Upon the ides of March!—thou, at whose feet
Fell the world's monarch, eloquent and brave,
The great in conquest, and the proud of soul.—
Waked there no spark Promethean in thy breast,
When sadly muffled in his mantle's fold
Fainting, he fell on thee?—
Didst thou stand forth
In the same dark and motionless beauty, while
Casca's impatient sword, and the keen point
Of Cassius, and the "unkindest cut of all,"
From the loved hand of Brutus, and the rage
Of traitorous daggers search'd that noble breast,
Which Gaul, and Egypt, and Pharsalia's plains
Had seen bright-clad in victory's burnish'd mail,
Trembling as at a war-god?—
Tragic close
Of mad ambition's drama!—the deep plaint
Of "Et tu Brute!"—and the indignant pang
With which that proud soul left the wounded clay,
Scorning a world which mock'd it with the cheat
Of friendship and of faith!—
And yet that world
Had owed him little, save the blood that made
Her harvests plenteous, save the unheeded groan
Of famish'd widow, and of sireless babe,
A meteor glory kindled up at Rome,
And all beside, a desert.—Deeds like these,
How weigh they in Heaven's balance, when the pomp
Of earth hath fled away?—Man may not judge,
But wait in trembling for his trial-day.—
—And yet 't would seem that the meek hind, whose hand
Made hard with labour, deals the daily bread
To the young nurslings of his humble nest,
Whose head beneath his planted trees and flowers,
Sinks calmly down in the long sleep of death,
Hath better passport to the clime of peace
Than the blood-nourish'd master of a world.