What we get from Tino's modern Greece is not
civilisation but the little black currants for plum-cake.
* *
But Rome. Greece may be dead or in the currant trade. Rome is alive
and immortal. Do not talk to me about Signor Giolitti, who is quite
sure that the only things that matter in this new Italy, which is old
Rome, are her commercial relations with Germany. Rome of the legions,
our ancient mistress and conqueror, is alive to-day, and she cannot be
for an ignoble peace. Here in my newspaper is the speech of a poet
spoken in Rome to a shouting crowd: I will cut out the column and put
it in the Poetry Book.
* *
He calls to the living and to the dead: "I saw the fire of Vesta, O
Romans, lit yesterday in the great steel works of Liguria, The
fountain of Juturna, O Romans, I saw its water run to temper armour,
to chill the drills that hollow out the bore of guns." This is poetry
of the old Roman sort. I imagine that scene in Rome: the latest poet
of Rome calling upon the Romans in the name of Vesta's holy fire, in
the name of the springs at which the Great Twin Brethren washed their
horses.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59