Campagna Nirvana

LET go the tiresome thought,
All is naught!
For here Rome sleeping lies
With untired eyes,
And all the outpoured blood,
A lavish flood,
Which drenched this battle plain
Has left no stain,
Save poppies’ drowsy, red,
Frail petals shed
On faint winds’ wooing breath, —
Love’s kiss of death.

Chariot wheels, through centuries heard,
Now leave unstirred
Silence of Campagna sweep,
Where straying sheep
In summer stillness pass
And find new grass ;
Roads where Roman legions trod
Are daisied sod ;
The ways which triumphs shook
Now patient brook
White oxen, which, slow brooding, tread
Rome’s kingly dead,
With shadows of the twilight skies
In wistful eyes.

And after all the centuries told,
This plain is gold ;
In undimmed purple lie
Against the sky
The hills, which lift as far
As night’s first star ;
Air rent with trumpets’ blare
Is tranced as prayer;
The heavens where eagles flew
Drop silent dew.
Rome’s world-ensweeping power,
This twilight hour,
But clouds which drift on sunset sea
Where visions be.
Rome’s day of full-orbed light
Drops into night.
So thought of mine finds rest
On Rome’s dead breast.