When Rome went ravening to see

The sons of mothers end their days,

When Flaccus bade Leuconoe

To banish her Chaldean ways,

When first the pearled, alembic phrase

Of Maro into music ran

Here there was neither blame nor praise

For Rome, or for the Mantuan.

When Avon, like a faery floor,

Lay freighted, for the eyes of One,

With galleons laden long before

By moonlit wharves in Avalon

Here, where the white lights have begun

To seethe a way for something fair,

No prophet knew, from what was done,

That there was triumph in the air.

[72]