I.
" TOLLUNT AULAEA BRITANNI." * Lo! the funereal casket reappears ; Hid not a yard from light two thousand years, Where boyish feet tread daily, unexplored.
Mark them (strange sight !), to whom the Roman word Echoes in vain on irresponsive ears, Touched little by the Latin poet's tears, Fired not by flash of Rome's victorious sword ; Flannelled, bare-kneed, to them is Rome reborn From this ash-heap, be Caesar doubly dead!
See my ill-lettered scholar of this morn Showering with sand his busy burrowing head I For Briton boys again in freer days On ruinous Rome the long-fall'n curtain raise.
• See Virgil, " Georgics," III. 25. With apology for the misapplication of an Isicient phrase in a modern sense.
As on the steep and sandy promontory Southward I looked from our Carthusian Green, Where glimpse of England's bulwark-wall is seen, Yon dim South Down,—I pondered Caesar's story. Looked be on Hascombe's early vernal glory, Who saw no beech* in England? Had he been In sight of Highdown's dark pine-fretted screen, Who found no fir,* when wild bands predatory Lined many a forest edge and wooded stream ? Else might I think, where mimic fights now rage, Barbarian war then thundered : might I dream Here ranged the valiant Roman equipage ; Where now the touch-line, then the trench was drawn To break the chariot-charge of Cassivelauu.
"—DIU, RES SI QUA DIU MORTALIBUS ULLA EST—"f Sweet was that Easter Eve; the leathern ball Fled and returned from volleying instep high, Or bullet-like round buttress-corner sly Mocked the pursuing hand from wall to wall.
So did that scene a classic thought recall: Long eau our land with these the world defy !
Long—",aye if aught be long to those who die," For Time must vanquish all things temporal.
Rome oinks to rest and rises not again, Though raised to light her shapely moulded urns, And Strength grows old, and Youth begins to wane, And every conqueror to the dust returns.
They only yield not to the deathly prison, Who conquer Self and so with Christ be risen.
Guy KENDALL.
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