West and East
Rome is chiefly known to young readers through the medium of Macaulay’s spirited “Lays,” which, however, are only a re-telling, in English ballad form, of some of the legends which survived into historical times concerning the infant city, about which nothing certain is known. They give no idea of the Rome of history, the world-power, or of the brooding immensity of her influence through centuries. This and the following poem illustrate, to some slight extent, the later Rome.
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crown’d his hair with flowers—
No easier nor no quicker pass’d
The impracticable hours.
The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swell’d and swell’d,
And on her head was hurled.
The East bow’d low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
Matthew Arnold.