to the sting of a heart's disgrace....
How should I wish him a lesser grace,
How should I strive with a wiser Will?
Yet how can the heart that is reft divine
Death's mystical, measureless charity?
The cry of the stricken king is mine:
"Would I had died for thee!"

Severance

Not severed by long leagues of lonely land,
Nor sundered by wide wastes of sounding sea;
But ever side by side and hand in hand,
And yet--apart are we.

Spartacus

He stands storm-browed, imperial, chief
Of all Rome's gladiators; brave
Beyond all others; fearless in belief,
A captive--but no slave.
His brow is like a god's--a brow of power,
Lips soft with human sweetness--ere the day
He entered the arena, and the hour
He first beheld man's life-blood mixed with clay.

Felt rise within him bestial strange desires
And savage instincts in a brutal heart
That battened on men's blood; burned with unhallowed fires
Of slaughter--till--a thing apart,
A hired butcher of his fellow men, he stands
Daring the fasting lion in his den,
Or some fierce gladiator on the blood-stained sands,--
A savage chief of yet more savage men!

He stands, with massive throat and thews of steel,
While loud acclaims the listening heavens fill,
And Roman women smile. He does not know; or feel
A moment's joy or one triumphant thrill.
He heeds them not. He sees as in a dream
His home and Cyrasella's citron groves;
A youth again, beside some purling stream,
With gladsome heart and joyous pipe he roves.

He sees anon that gentle shepherd boy,
Who knew no harsher sound than plaining flute,
In the arena stand--Rome's sport and toy--
A bestial, blood-stained hireling brute....
Then swift thro' every throbbing, pulsing vein
The fierce unconquered spirit of old Sparta ran.
Rome's fiercest gladiator is to-day again
A Thracian--and a man!

The Dead Leader

After the waiting and the anguished weeping
He lies at rest at last.
How should we mourn him tranced in peaceful sleeping,
His pain all past!

The Right's Excalibur his strong arm wielded
A little space lies low;
The victor in life's sometime strife has yielded
To man's last Foe.

Late--all too late--our loyal tribute giving
A loyal, fearless soul!
He whom we honored late--so late--while living,
Lies dead beside the goal.

Yet this the solace of these long sad hours
While we who loved