The open sea. Edgar Lee Masters

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       A coterie of the rich who lived in splendor;

       A working class that lived on doles of corn

       And hordes of slaves from Asia, Africa,

       Who plotted murders in the dark purlieus;

       The provinces were drained to feed the rich;

       The city ruled by bribery, and corruption;

       Armed gladiators sold their services.

       And battled in the Forum; magistrates

       Were freely scoffed at, consuls were attacked;

       And orators spat in each other’s faces

       When reason failed them speaking in the Forum;

       No man of prominence went on the streets

       Without his hired gladiators, slaves.

       The streets were unpoliced, no fire brigade,

       Safe-guarded property. Domestic life

       Was rotten at the heart, and vice was taught.

       Divorce was rife and even holy Cato

       Put by his wife.

      And this was the republic

       That Cæsar took; and not the lovely state

       Ordered and prospered, which ambitious Cæsar,

       As Shakespeare paints him, over-whelmed. For Cæsar

       Could execute the vision that the people

       Deserve not what they want, but otherwise

       What they should want, and in that mind was king

       And emperor.

      And what was here for Shakespeare

       To love and manifest by art, who hated

       The Puritan, the mob? Colossus Cæsar,

       Whose harmony of mind took deep offense

       At ugliness, disharmony! See the man:

       Of body perfect and of rugged health,

       Of graceful carriage, fashion, bold of eye,

       A swordsman, horseman, and a general

       Not less than Alexander; orator

       Who rivalled Cicero, a man of charm,

       Of wit and humor, versed in books as well;

       Who at one time could dictate, read and write,

       Composing grammars as he rode to war,

       Amid distractions, dangers, battles, writing

       Great commentaries. Yes, he is the man

       In whom was mixed the elements that Nature

       Might say:—this was a man—and not this Brutus.

      Look at his camp, wherever pitched in Gaul,

       Thronged by young poets, thinkers, scholars, wits,

       And headed by this Cæsar, who when arms

       Are resting from the battle, makes reports

       Of all that’s said and done to Cicero.

       Here is a man large minded and sincere,

       Active, a lover, conscious of his place,

       Knowing his power, no reverence for the past,

       Save what the past deserved, who made the task

       What could be done and did it—seized the power

       Of rulership and did not put it by

       As Shakespeare clothes him with pretence of doing.

       For what was kingship to him? empty name!

       He who had mastered Asia, Africa,

       Egypt, Hispania, after twenty years

       Of cyclic dreams and labor—king indeed!

       A name! when sovereign power was nothing new.

       He’s fifty-six, and knows the human breed,

       Sees man as body hiding a canal

       For passing food along, a little brain

       That watches, loves, attends the said canal.

       He’s been imperator at least two years—

       King in good sooth! He knows he is not valued,

       That he’s misprized and hated, is compelled

       To use whom he distrusts, despises too.

       Why, what was life to him with such contempt

       Of all this dirty world, this eagle set

       Amid a flock of vultures, cow-birds, bats?

       His ladder was not lowliness, but genius.

       Read of his capture in Bithynia,

       When he was just a stripling by Cilician

       Pirates whom he treated like his slaves,

       And told them to their face when he was ransomed

       He’d have them crucified. He did it, too.

       His ransom came at last, he was released,

       And set to work at once to keep his word;

       Fitted some ships out, captured every one

       And crucified them all at Pergamos.

       Not lowliness his ladder, but the strength

       That steps on shoulders, fit for steps alone.

       So on this top-most rung he did not scan

       The base degrees by which he did ascend,

       But sickened rather at a world whose heights

       Are not worth reaching. So it was he went

       Unarmed and unprotected to the Senate,

       Knowing that death is noble, being nature,

       And scorning fear. Why, he had lived enough.

       The night before he dined with Lepidus,

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