POETRY.
TO FLAVIA PUBLICIA, 247 A.D.
['. Flaviee Levi Elias Publicise religiose
oaaetitatie vinsim Vestall Maximae."]
Ai owe your bays and roses here you stand,
. While tattered time slips by you, half afraid. To snatch the eternal moment from your hand, 0 sculptured maid.
Through mart and street and grove you passed along, Or watched the games upon a festal day; You took the noisy worship of the throng, Then went your way.
You went your way with gracious willing feet, You watched your shrine with eyes that would not tire, You kept the heart of a great people sweet, And fed the fire.
Ab, not for you the common human part ; ■ No man might take your hands and lead you home, But on your breast there beat a mightier heart— The heart of Rome.
And yet perchance you yearned for human bliss, And wearied as you watched your crystal spring, For infant lips upheld to meet your kiss, And hands that cling.
Before the holy hearth you burned the dream And drowned it in your fountain sparkling bright; Then on your golden face shone out that gleam Of deathless light.
And all Rome's sons were yours, 0 mother brave; You held the source of all men's vain desire, Guardian of life itself—the leaping wave, The scathing fire.
Now on your brow retold the secret lies, The secret that a later age made plain— To have is not to have—to lose the prize The only gain.
Take, Flavia, then, our homage of to-day; And you, in countless years, fresh from the past, The Christian traversing your Sacred Way May meet at last.
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