NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS
(1887)
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.
