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Thomas Hardy - Rome: At the Pyramid Of Cestius. (Near The Graves Of Shelley & Keats)
Work rating: Medium

Who, then, was Cestius,
      And what is he to me? -
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
      One thought alone brings he.

      I can recall no word
      Of anything he did;
For me he is a man who died and was interred
      To leave a pyramid

      Whose purpose was exprest
      Not with its first design,
Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest
      Two countrymen of mine.

      Cestius in life, maybe,
      Slew, breathed out threatening;
I know not.  This I know:  in death all silently
      He does a kindlier thing,

      In beckoning pilgrim feet
      With marble finger high
To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,
      Those matchless singers lie . . .

     —Say, then, he lived and died
      That stones which bear his name
Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;
      It is an ample fame.
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