Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/22

10 Hush! Old Rome herself appeareth,
 * Pleading for the ancient faith:

Urging all her by-gone glory—
 * That to change the old were death.

Rudely answer the patricians,
 * Scoffing at the time-worn snare:

Twice a thousand years of sacrifice
 * Have melted into air;

Twice a thousand years of worship
 * Have bitterly sufficed

To prove there is no Jupiter!
 * The Senate votes for Christ!

Not aimless is the story,
 * The moral not remote:

For still the gods are questioned,
 * And still the Senates vote.

Men sacrifice to Venus;
 * To Mars are victims led;

And Mercury is honored still;
 * And Bacchus is not dead;—