IN THE OLD THEATRE, FIESOLE
(April, 1887)
Thomas Hardy -
Poems of the Past and Present
I traced the
Circus whose gray stones incline
Where
Rome and dim
Etruria interjoin,
Till came a child who showed an ancient coin
That bore the image of a
Constantine.
She lightly passed; nor did she once
opine
How, better than all books, she had raised for me
In swift perspective
Europe's history
Through the vast years of
Caesar's sceptred line.
For in my distant plot of
English loam
'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find
Coins of like impress. As with one half blind
Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home
In that mute moment to my
opened mind
The power, the pride, the reach of perished
Rome.