| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| After Construing |
| | | Arthur Christopher Benson (1862–1925) |
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| LORD CÆSAR, when you sternly wrote | |
| The story of your grim campaigns, | |
| And watched the ragged smoke-wreath float | |
| Above the burning plains, | |
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| Amid the impenetrable wood, | 5 |
| Amid the camp’s incessant hum, | |
| At eve, beside the tumbling flood | |
| In high Avaricum, | |
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| You little recked, imperious head, | |
| When shrilled your shattering trumpet’s noise, | 10 |
| Your frigid sections would be read | |
| By bright-eyed English boys. | |
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| Ah me! who penetrates to-day | |
| The secret of your deep designs? | |
| Your sovereign visions, as you lay | 15 |
| Amid the sleeping lines? | |
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| The Mantuan singer pleading stands; | |
| From century to century | |
| He leans and reaches wistful hands, | |
| And cannot bear to die. | 20 |
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| But you are silent, secret, proud, | |
| No smile upon your haggard face, | |
| As when you eyed the murderous crowd | |
| Beside the statue’s base. | |
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| I marvel: that Titanic heart | 25 |
| Beats strongly through the arid page, | |
| And we, self-conscious sons of art, | |
| In this bewildering age, | |
| |
| Like dizzy revellers stumbling out | |
| Upon the pure and peaceful night, | 30 |
| Are sobered into troubled doubt, | |
| As swims across our sight | |
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| The ray of that sequestered sun, | |
| Far in the illimitable blue,— | |
| The dream of all you left undone, | 35 |
| Of all you dared to do. | |
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