Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies. Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi. "O Cжsar, we who are about to die Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry In the arena, standing face to face With death and with the Roman populace. O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine, That once were mine and are no longer mine,-- Thou river, widening through the meadows green To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,-- Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose And vanished,--we who are about to die, Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky, And the Imperial Sun that scatters down His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.…