Signed him onwards.

He might never

Rest, till he prevailed to bind

With strong bonds of human kinship

Westmost Greece and Eastmost Ind.

Onward, onward! O'er thy birdless
Steep, Aornos, he prevailed,

Which the stout son of Alcmena

Three times dared, and three times failed.

Him the fort of Dionysus,

Nysa, praised by the Hindoo,

With its wreaths of cooling ivy,

And its groves of laurel, knew.

On the banks of the Hydaspes

Porus stood, high-statured king,

With his elephants and chariots

Bristling wide from wing to wing.

Breast-high marched the Macedonian

Through its flood, nor knew to cease

From the shock of spears, till Porus

Bowed the subject knee to Greece.

Indus with its seven mouths hailed him, Tideful ocean owned his rule,

And with grateful grace to Neptune

There he sacrificed a bull.

Westward then with work accomplished, Through a wide unwatered waste, Through thy burning sands, Gedrosia, Back his stout-souled march he traced;

Back to Babylon. There the nations,
In the garb of gladness dressed,
Sent their missioned chiefs to greet him
Umpire of the East and West.

But the gods would have him. Grandly What he proudly sought he gained : Greece had conquered the Barbarian ;

Where he throned her, she remained.

40

CÆSAR.

I HAVE sung the Greek. The Roman
Now stands forth in iron mailed,

Who by patient plan, and manly
Will, and might of hand prevailed;

Who, by clod-subduing labour,

Rose, hard toil and sober cheer, Stern-faced Law and strict obedience, Sacred reverence and fear;

Fell, by overgrowth of Fortune,
Fell, by insolence of sway,

When in pride of strength the strong man

Tramped the weak man in the clay;

Fell, by sacred greed of having,

All the trash that gold can buy, Piles of grandeur, seas of glitter,

Shows that feed the lustful eye;

Acres, gardens, gladiators,

Fish-ponds, towers that flaunt the sky,

Purple pomp and pillowed pleasure,
And a wine-cup seldom dry,

All things; only not a common-
Hearted zeal for common good,

With a fevered lust of getting,

Each man what he nearest could

Not as brother strives with brother,

But with rage of tigerhood,

Plunging, tearing on to power

Through seas of bribery and blood.

But not all were vile. Some wildly Fought and foamed like fretted cattle;

Some, with lofty ken far-viewed,

And lofty aim controlled the battle.

Such was CÆSAR; neither weakly
Shrinking from a forceful blow,

Nor with insolent triumph trampling
In the mire a fallen foe.

Bred to fearless, firm directness

In the soldier's kingly school,

In an age when only swords

Gave strength to stand or right to rule,

Step by step with measured boldness,
Wise to wait the ripening hour,

Quick to seize the breeze of favour,
Up the strong man clomb to power.

Fluent talkers in the forum

Sway the passion of the hour;

But when Fate will seal her charter,

Then the soldier comes with power.