Road of the dead! whose stately avenue
Of ruined tombs reveals the glorious past,
When proud patrician chariots rolling fast
And litters borne by slaves of ebon hue
Breasted the throng that ever thicker grew
And onward hurried where the portal vast
Showed praetor, tribune and plebeian massed
With traders from afar beyond the blue.
Road of the dead! thy voices haunted me,
Once as I lingered on a starlit night,
Seeing thy restless ghosts in fantasy:
And Peter paused again in act to flee:
With downcast eyes and pale with sudden fright,
Then whispered low: "Quo vadis Domine?"
_Note_.--Tradition has it that Peter in a moment of weakness fled to
escape martyrdom, but was turned back by a vision of his Master. The
little church of Quo vadis Domine on the Appian Way commemorates this.