Why did they bring him home,
Bright jewel set in lead?
Oh, bear the sculptor back to Rome,
And lay him with the mighty dead,--
With Adonais, and the rest
Of all the young and good and fair,
That drew the milk of English breast,
And their last sigh in Latian air!
Lay him with Raphael, unto whom
Was granted Rome's most lasting tomb;
For many a lustre, many an aeon,
He might sleep well in the Pantheon,
Deep in the sacred city's womb,
The smoke and splendor and the stir of Rome.
Lay him 'neath Diocletian's dome,
Blessed Saint Mary of the Angels,
Near to that house in which he dwelt,--
House that to many seemed a home,
So much with him they loved and felt.
We were his guests a hundred times;
We loved him for his genial ways;
He gave me credit for my rhymes,
And made me blush with praise.
Ah! there be many histories
That no historian writes,
And friendship hath its mysteries
And consecrated nights;
Amid the busy days of pain,
Wear of hand, and tear of brain,
Weary midnight, weary morn,
Years of struggle paid with scorn;--
Yet oft amid all this despair,
Long rambles in the Autumn days
O'er Appian or Flaminian Ways,
Bright moments snatched from care,
When loose as buffaloes on the wild Campagna
We roved and dined on crust and curds,
Olives, thin wine, and thinner birds,
And woke the echoes of divine Romagna;
And then returning late,
After long knocking at the Lateran gate,
Suppers and nights of gods; and then
Mornings that made us new-born men;
Rare nights at the Minerva tavern,
With Orvieto from the Cardinal's cavern;
Free nights, but fearless and without reproof,--
For Bayard's word ruled Beppo's roof.
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