In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin

The last warm gleams of sunset fade

From cypress spire and stonepine dome,

And, in the twilight’s deepening shade,

Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome.

Husht the Madonna’s Evening Bell;

The steers lie loosed from wain and plough;

The vagrant monk is in his cell,

The meek nun-novice cloistered now.

Pedant’s presumptuous voice no more

Vexes the spot where Caesar trod,

And o’er the pavement’s soundless floor

Come banished priest and exiled God.

The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among

The regal hillside’s tangled scrubs,

With doting gaze and fondling tongue

Suckles the Vestal’s twin-born cubs.

Yet once again Evander leads

Æneas to his wattled home,

And, throned on Tiber’s fresh-cut reeds,

Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome.

From out the tawny dusk one hears

The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids,

The rush to arms, then swift the tears

That separate the clashing blades.

The Lictors with their fasces throng

To quell the Commons’ rising roar,

As Tullia’s chariot flames along,

Splashed with her murdered father’s gore.

Her tresses free from band or comb,

Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall,

And fresh as Fiumicino’s foam,

Mounts her pentelic pedestal.

With languid lids, and lips apart,

And curving limbs like wave half-furled,

Unarmed she dominates the heart,

And without sceptre sways the world.

Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars

Stalks through the Forum’s fallen fanes,

Or, changed of mien and healed of scars,

Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains.

With waves of song from wakening lyre

Apollo routs the wavering night,

While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir

Wind chanting up the Sacred Height,

Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed,

And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam,

Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed,

And frowns against the foes of Rome.

You cannot kill the Gods. They still

Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned,

Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill,

And renovate their rites profaned.

Diana’s hounds still lead the chase,

Still Neptune’s Trident crests the sea,

And still man’s spirit soars through space

On feathered heels of Mercury.

No flood can quench the Vestals’ Fire;

The Flamen’s robes are still as white

As ere the Salii’s armoured choir

Were drowned by droning anchorite.

The saint may seize the siren’s seat,

The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun;

Ne’er will, though all beside should fleet,

The Olympian Presence be withdrawn.

Here, even in the noontide glare,

The Gods, recumbent, take their ease;

Go look, and you will find them there,

Slumbering behind some fallen frieze.

But most, when sunset glow hath paled,

And come, as now, the twilight hour,

In vesper vagueness dimly veiled

I feel their presence and their power.

What though their temples strew the ground,

And to the ruin owls repair,

Their home, their haunt, is all around;

They drive the cloud, they ride the air.

And, when the planets wend their way

Along the never-ageing skies,

“Revere the Gods” I hear them say;

“The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.”

Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers

Through marble fissures, granite rents;

Only Imagination rears

Imperishable monuments.

Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine,

Level the altar, fire the fane:

There is no razing the Divine;

The Gods return, the Gods remain.