| |
| I AM poor and old and blind; | |
| The sun burns me, and the wind | |
| Blows through the city gate, | |
| And covers me with dust | |
| From the wheels of the august | 5 |
| Justinian the Great. | |
| |
| It was for him I chased | |
| The Persians o’er wild and waste, | |
| As General of the East; | |
| Night after night I lay | 10 |
| In their camps of yesterday; | |
| Their forage was my feast. | |
| |
| For him, with sails of red, | |
| And torches at mast-head, | |
| Piloting the great fleet, | 15 |
| I swept the Afric coasts | |
| And scattered the Vandal hosts, | |
| Like dust in a windy street. | |
| |
| For him I won again | |
| The Ausonian realm and reign, | 20 |
| Rome and Parthenope; | |
| And all the land was mine | |
| From the summits of Apennine | |
| To the shores of either sea. | |
| |
| For him, in my feeble age, | 25 |
| I dared the battle’s rage, | |
| To save Byzantium’s state, | |
| When the tents of Zabergan, | |
| Like snow-drifts overran | |
| The road to the Golden Gate. | 30 |
| |
| And for this, for this, behold! | |
| Infirm and blind and old, | |
| With gray, uncovered head, | |
| Beneath the very arch | |
| Of my triumphal march, | 35 |
| I stand and beg my bread! | |
| |
| Methinks I still can hear, | |
| Sounding distinct and near, | |
| The Vandal monarch’s cry, | |
| As, captive and disgraced, | 40 |
| With majestic step he paced,— | |
| “All, all is Vanity!” | |
| |
| Ah! vainest of all things | |
| Is the gratitude of kings; | |
| The plaudits of the crowd | 45 |
| Are but the clatter of feet | |
| At midnight in the street, | |
| Hollow and restless and loud. | |
| |
| But the bitterest disgrace | |
| Is to see forever the face | 50 |
| Of the Monk of Ephesus! | |
| The unconquerable will | |
| This, too, can bear;—I still | |
| Am Belisarius! | |
| |
