Chapter II

The Romans loved their soldier dead,
And brightest, grandest honors o'er them spread.
That hard, grim nation, which with fierce iron hand
Clasped by the choking throat land after land,
And blood of its own living freely shed,
Grew strangely tender with its warrior dead.
The past was dragged for deeds of might and fame,
To hang in garlands on the golden name;
The magic silver of some gifted tongue
Chaplets of praise above his body flung;
And words fell on the living, listening ear,
The dead might well awaken but to hear.

The flags that he had captured, draped in gloom,
Before him waved--he found them at his tomb;
Sweet flowers, the freshest beauties of a day,
Made a fair garden round the hero's clay;
Great monuments wrote solemnly on high
His glory o'er the blue page of the sky;
And epitaphs, beneath the sparkling name,
Gave to the voiceless dead a tongue of flame.
Who fell with patriotic bravery, knew,
Humble or proud, his deeds would have their due;
Whoe'er with baseness threw his name away,
Knew that, when fall'n, he formed the vulture's prey.
Oh yes, the Romans loved their valiant dead,
The while their living were to victory led!
Swift-sighted Rome! you knew the intense desire
Of men to live when lesser men expire;
Knew how they struggle, e'en with latest breath,
To make their names o'erbridge the gulf of death;
Knew the last rites to one dead hero paid
Would sharpen many a living warrior's blade;
Knew how your victory-accustomed bands
Were waved along by their dead comrades' hands!
Yet not like ours that Roman love could be:
They did not love the living as do we!