The Via Appia (for Paul-Jean Toulet)

Who else hath trodden those antique, paved ways,

Gone from distant seas to loftiest walls,

Through those sweeps of green lined with marble halls,

‘Neath shady pines, those abodes of manes^[1].

From within they watch, from within they gaze,

And to all who pass by, they calmly call,

Hoping to hold those strange souls in their thrall,

This now their life, these now their deathless days.

But who hath heard the silence of those stones,

Ever reaching for us with wraithlike arms,

Speaking to us in epitaphic tones,

Whispering so softly oracular charms,

“Seize the moment, whilst you still have some breath,Knowing that with this life, comes deathless death…”

^[1] The souls of the dead.