The incident, which the following stanzas attempt to describe, is
historical. It is related by Gibbon in his "Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire."
Ye, who have the ruins seen
Of the Coliseum's walls,
Think ye, what the sight hath been
Of Rome's highest festivals!
If your fancy can restore
Crumbled arch and corridor,
Call forth the dead;
Bid them fill again the seats,
Where now Echo only greets
The stranger's tread.
Fourteen hundred years are past,
Rome hath fallen in her pride,
Since the gladiator last
In the Coliseum died.
Fourteen hundred years ago,
Tens of thousands thronged the show,
In joyous guise,
On the struggle and the strife,
And the pangs of parting life,
Feasting their eyes.
Then ye might have heard the roar
Of the noble beasts of prey,
As they fought and bled, before
Men less noble far than they.
Strength is useless, courage vain,
Beauty saves not--they are slain,
The forest race;
Whilst the still unsated crowd
For new victims shout aloud,
To fill their place.
Hark! the Praetor's stern command
Costlier sacrifice proclaims;
Lo! the gladiatorial band,
Glory of the Roman Games!
As they enter, man by man,
Shape and size the people scan
With eager glance;
And of each ill-fated pair,
That await the signal there,
Foretell the chance.
Hark! the trumpet's sudden sound;
Lo! the work of death begun:
Seas of blood shall drench the ground,
Ere that deadly work be done.
Ha! a moment of delay?
What the lifted hand can stay?
Is there a fear
Of Pompeii's fiery shower?
Or, doth Earthquake's giant power
Make havoc here?
No--for Nature with a smile
Looks upon her outraged laws,
Man's indignant voice the while
Bidding man in pity pause.
See!--a monk, obscure, unknown,
Christ's disciple, treads alone
The arena's sand,
Foe from foe intent to part,
Striving with a zealous heart,
But feeble hand.
Would ye seek to know his fate?
Listen to that savage yell!
Scorn, derision, fury, hate,
Doomed his death--the martyr fell.
Record there is none to show,
Whose the hand that dealt the blow
That laid him there;
Men who gazed, and men who fought,
All alike to madness wrought,
The guilt must share.
Whether stoned to death, or slain
By the sword, or by the spear,
Little recks it--it were vain
Through the mists of time to peer.
This we know--the martyr died;
Nor without success had plied
His work of peace,
Since, to expiate that deed,
Rome's Imperial Lord decreed,
The Games should cease.
Rome obeyed her Lord's commands;
Never were those Games renewed:
Now the priest of Jesus stands
Where the gladiator stood.
Thanks, Telemachus, to thee,
Sainted martyr, now we see
Altars around;
And the spot, where thou of yore
Did'st thy life-blood nobly pour,
Is hallowed ground.