Laugh not, my Claudia. _I_ laughed when I heard
The prophecy; I would I had not laughed!
I Maximus, was chosen for the guard,
With all my trusty fellows.
Pilate knew I was a man who had no foolish heart
Of softness all unworthy of a man!
I was a soldier who had slain my foes;
My eyes had looked upon a tortured slave
As on a beetle crushed beneath my tread;
I gloried in the splendid strife of war,
Lusting for conquest; I had won the praise
Of our stern general on a scarlet field,
Red in my veins the warrior passion ran,
For I had sprung from heroes, Roman born!
That second night we watched before the tomb;
My men were merry; on the velvet turf,
Bestarred with early blossoms of the spring,
They diced with jest and laughter; all around
The moonlight washed us like a silver lake,
Save where that silent, sealed sepulchre
Was hung with shadow as a purple pall.
A faint wind stirred among the olive boughs . . .
Methinks I hear the sighing of that wind
In all sounds since, it was so dumbly sad;
But as the night wore on it died away,
And all was deadly stillness; Claudia,
That stillness was most awful, as if some
Great heart had broken and so ceased to beat!
I thought of many things, but found no joy
In any thought, even the thought of thee;
The moon waned in the west and sickly grew,
Her light sucked from her in the breaking dawn .
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