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Quia Nominor Leo - Sonnets

What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,

Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope

And compass of thine homicidal hope

The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast

Of souls subdued from west to sunless east,

From blackening north to bloodred south aslope,

All servile; earth for footcloth of the pope,

And heaven for chancel-ceiling of the priest;

Thou that hadst earth by right of rack and rod,

Thou that hadst Rome because thy name was God,

And by thy creed's gift heaven wherein to dwell;

Heaven laughs with all his light and might above

That earth has cast thee out of faith and love;

Thy part is but the hollow dream of hell.

II.

The light of life has faded from thy cause,

High priest of heaven and hell and purgatory:

Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld story,

But the red prey was rent out of thy paws

Long since and they that dying brake down thy laws

Have with the fires of death-enkindled glory

Put out the flame that faltered on thy hoary

High altars, waning with the world's applause.

This Italy was Dante's Bruno died

Here Campanella, too sublime for pride,

Endured thy God's worst here, and hence went home.

And what art thou, that time's full tide should shrink

For thy sake downward? What art thou, to think

Thy God shall give thee back for birthright Rome?