Vercingetorix

Poem, rhyming free verse

Vercingetorix throws down his arms at the feet of Julius Caesar (1899) by Lionel Royer.

This poem was set to go and finished after the second stanza. But the esteemed editor of this and of all things published here (who lives with me and with whom I share everything) thought it required further address—as the original thought was stunted, and in its brevity, she thought the poem suggested something untrue. Thus no matter how much I want to write “seriously” in the modern style, without a happy epithet (as the great unhappy poets of recent time will do) I am once again humbled and complied to produce a poem which attempts to look Hope in the eye without sneer or ingeniousness.

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I’ve heard Caesar wept when he read
That, aged sixteen, Alexander conquered all.
Yet elsewhere it is also said,
That same Caesar rejoiced in Vercingetorix’s fall.
Which that Gaul’s sixteen no less than the Greek,
Suggests Caesar wept not for youthful dignity.
But for the thought that makes ambition reek,
The thirst for glory that’s fueled by enmity.

So I am with Caesar, sadly, when I with spittle spake,
That God made me live in time too late.
This present life I feel is some mistake,
Compared to ancient man’s most noble fate.
No carrion shall wheel above my red remain,
No poet recall my deed,
I shall make the rent with little gain,
And die not from wounds that bleed.

You are lucky says the dirt mounded,
You were born in better days,
I am cursed I say dumbfounded,
I am born when cows don’t graze,
When flame is magic when water taps,
When chariots carry orchestras,
When poets idle writing raps,
Of horny wasps that chase the buzz.

Then time stands still and I am mute,
My wife bestrides the room.
Then argument becomes refute,
The present lost of gloom.
If now was then we would not be
Says she with disaffect.
Your children would be not as well,
And all this you regret?

Thus in wheeling whirls I am brought to,
I spy the walled sacrifice.
What was best to Him, was best for You,
Must be for me sublime suffice.