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Thomas Hardy - The Roman Gravemounds
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By Rome`s dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.


`Vast was Rome,` he must muse, `in the worlds regard,
Vast it looms there still, Vast it ever will be;`
And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard
Left by those who are held in such memory.


But no; in his basket, see, he has brought
A little white furred thing, stiff of limb,
Whose life never won from the world a thought;
It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.


And to make it a grave he has come to the spot,
And he delves in the ancient dead`s long home;
Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not;
The furred thing is all to him — nothing Rome!


`Here say you that Caesar`s warriors lie? —
But my little white cat was my only friend!
Could she but live, might the record die
Of Caesar, his legions, his aims, his end!`


Well, Rome`s long rule here is oft and again
A theme for the sages of history,
And the small furred life was worth no one`s pen;
Yet its mourner`s mood has a charm for me.
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