| |
| IT was a barren beach on Egypt’s strand, | |
| And near the waves, where he had breathed his last, | |
| The form of one slain there by treachery | |
| Lay stripped and mangled. On each manly limb | |
| Somewhat of strength and beauty yet remained, | 5 |
| Though war and toil and travel, and the lapse | |
| Of sixty years save one, had left their marks | |
Traced visibly.
But the imperial head, | |
| The close-curled locks, and grizzled beard were gone! | |
| Soon to be laid before the feet of one | 10 |
| Who should receive with anguish, horror-struck, | |
| Giver and gift! and, weeping, turn away. | |
| |
| The ruffian task was ended,—the base crowd | |
| Had stared its vulgar fill,—and they were gone, | |
| The murderers and the parasites,—all gone. | 15 |
| But one yet lingered, and beside the dead, | |
| As the last footstep died away, he knelt, | |
| And laved its clotted wounds in the salt sea, | |
| Composed with care the violated frame, | |
| Doffed his own garment, and with reverent hands | 20 |
| Covered the nakedness of those brave limbs. | |
| But for a pile—a few dry boughs of wood | |
| For him, before whose step forests had fallen | |
| And cities blazed!—yet looking, sore perplexed, | |
| He spies the wreck of an old fishing-boat, | 25 |
| Wasted by sun and rain,—yet still enough | |
| For a poor body, naked, unentire. | |
| |
| While yet he laid the ribs and pitchy planks | |
| In such array as might be, decently, | |
| For him, whose giant funeral pyramid | 30 |
| All Rome had raised (could he have died at Rome), | |
An old man came beside him—
“Who art thou, | |
| That all alone dost tend with this last service | |
| Pompey the Great?” He said, “I am his freedman.” | |
| “Thou shalt not make this honor all thine own! | 35 |
| Since fate affords it, suffer me to share | |
| Thy pious task, though I have undergone | |
| These many years of exile and misfortune, | |
| ’T will be one solace to have aided thee | |
| In offering all that now remains to him, | 40 |
| My old commander,—and the greatest, noblest, | |
That Rome hath ever borne!”
They raised the body, | |
| And tenderly, as we move one in pain, | |
| Laid it upon the pile, in tears and silence. | |
| And one, his friend,—full soon to follow him,— | 45 |
| (Late shipped from Cyprus with Etesian gales,) | |
| Coasting along that desolate shore, beheld | |
| The smoke slow rising, and the funeral pyre | |
Watched by a single form.
“Who then has ended | |
| His days, and leaves his bones upon this beach?” | 50 |
| He said, and added, with a sigh, “Ah, Pompey! | |
| It may be thou!” | |
| |
