The Legend of Saint Alexis, Part I [pp. 145-158]

THE LEGEND OF SAINT ALEXIS.
Startling a score of scriveners, forms grotesque
That bend lean foreheads, seamed by fevered veins,
Across the ledger's breadth or mouldering desk;
For then each Roman noble held domains
By Rhenus, Rhodanus, and every shore
That hears or viol's sigh or panther's roar.
Those nobles seldom rode to battle-fields;
They steered to distant ports no ships broad-sailed;
But well they knew that gain which usury yields;
Or, borrowing oft, when tricksome fortune failed
Pawned their best plate and many a gem beside,
Knee-crooked to soothe some upstart lender's pride.
The gilded barge is launched: a score of slaves
Drag back the flashing oars; a second score
With incense charge each wind that curls the waves,
Or harmonize blue Baiae's sea-washed shore
With strains that charmed Calypso's halls erewhile,
Or lured Ulysses t'ward the Siren's isle.
They trod the marbles of the Thermae vast,
Their skirts aflame with legend-broideries;
Bull-born, Europa here the Bosphorus passed,
The Idean shepherd there adjudged the prize;
Or Venus, fisher turned, with bending rod
Landed a wet-winged Cupid on the sod.
Their litters borne by sweating slaves, they clomb
On August noons Soracte's steepest ridge;
Or, pinnace-cradled, pushed the creamy foam
Onward through dusk Avernus' waving sedge;
They turned not there great Maro's page, yet oft
Alike the Poet and his Sibyl scoffed.
Temples and shrines adorned their palaces;
Syrian the rite, once Roman, later Greek:
Old libraries remained: they sought them less
For song heroic than for tale lubrique;
There sophists warred in turn on body and soul;
There dust lay thick on Plato's godlike scroll.
1885.]
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