Stephen Vincent Benet

Five Men And Pompey Stephen Vincent Benet

Twelve years! Twelve years of striving! and at last My power is secure? Still Pompey lives And has an army and Metellus strives To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast: Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny. Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me. The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes, Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome. I have not spared my time, my gold, my blood. And now all vanishes in plots and gibes I love this warm, brown land; it is my home. And yet to see the Forum once again! Ah, Nydia! Nydia! Had you not died I could have crossed the Alps, have crushed these men, These unclean vultures, tearing at Rome's side; I could have brought back the Republic then. You died. I still fight on, but I am old.