Northern Marsh
Beyond the Roman highway lay
the marshes, lush and veiled and vast,
on gravel and on sun-baked clay,
a northern, watery mirage.
The never-ending summer’s day
had lured me to a gentle ridge;
the brushwood seemed without a way,
the pools and brooks without a bridge.
And yet I knew that people dwelt
amidst the shimmering, shifting maze…
My flung-out road was but a belt
around an untamed country’s waist.
Christina Egan © 2020
The Path of Luck
The burnished desk of the leader groaned
under the slap of his sturdy sandal:
he brandished it over the map of Europe,
as if he signed it, large, from the left.
The oil-lamp flickered, the officers frowned
and grinned and raised their cups of spiced wine:
“Don’t forge your luck while it’s hot and supple —
but fan your fate when you will it so!”
The earth would unroll like a scarlet carpet,
lavish her treasures before his feet:
the gold and the purple, sandalwood, snakeskin,
the pearl and the laurel, the wine from volcanoes.
His sandals mounting the snow-white steps,
he saw and saw not the pool of blood.
Christina Egan © 2008
Altae moenia Romae
Rome rose, looked round, and conquered all,
on loot and lies loomed square and tall,
and slowly crumbled towards its fall.
Time’s march defies the highest wall.
Christina Egan © 2008
The first poem was written on the Ides of March and the second soon after. They reveal the dark side of Rome, the shadow of the imperial propaganda that the Empire had brought universal peace. Caesar is still celebrated as the greatest statesman ever; but he got to the top, and lifted Rome to the top, at a very great human cost.
For praise of ancient Rome, go to the narrative poem The City Lit Up about Roman London and the sonnets at The Hallowed City about the Eternal City itself.
The poem above follows the structure of an English sonnet, with three times four lines and then two in the end, with a conclusion or twist.
Illustrations: Roman mosaic, Bardo Museum, Tunis. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014. — Milestone, Campidoglio, Rome. Photograph by Lalupa. — Roman city wall of London. Photograph by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons.
The Hallowed City
I.
Aliusque et idem nasceris
When last I looked upon that golden hill,
the only coal-grey clouds along its crest
were pine-trees of Mediterranean zest,
clear-cut against the blue, timeless and still.
When I surveyed the city from the west,
beyond the river and the seventh hill,
my thirsty eyes rejoiced and drank their fill…
A pilgrimage it was and pagan quest.
Behind me passed the Sun on wheels of fire,
accompanied by Mnemosyne’s lyre.
Was this my long-lost and recovered home?
Born here and buried, had I now returned,
the same and not the same? My eye-lids burned.
This is the hallowed city. This is Rome.
Christina Egan © 2018
II.
Pulchrae loca vertor ad urbis
My eyes have seen the marble halls of Rome,
resplendent like the mighty mistress Moon
and multi-coloured like a field in bloom;
I’ve watched the buildings grow in brick and stone.
I’ve stood beneath the proud and perfect dome
which emulates the heavens’ sparkling room
and holds our destiny from dawn to doom.
I’ve roamed those hills and called a roof my home.
I’ve heard the chanting children, sighing harps,
the darting chariots and creaking carts,
the swish of virgin water, purple wine,
I’ve seen the aqueducts descend and curve,
the roads roll into Rome, unite, disperse —
I’ve tasted all that splendour. It was mine.
Christina Egan © 2018
The first blogpost of the year deals, as always, with Roman roads!
The impression of aqueducts, which illustrated one of my parents’ books about ancient civilisations, informed my entire life. Unfortunately, I do not know the artist, but there does not seem to be a copyright on it.
The quotes are from two Roman poems about Rome, Horace’s Carmen saeculare and Ovid’s Tristia.
I apply Horace’s idea that the sun is daily reborn, another and yet the same, to a person who feels he or she was reborn into this world many centuries later, another and yet the same; and I reinterpret Ovid’s lament about remembering his home from exile as a modern person’s longing for antiquity. Mnemosyne is the Greco-Roman divinity of memory, and the Sun and Moon, of course, are mighty gods, or at least representations of gods.
The Eagle’s Outpost
Gently, I lay my hand upon a stone:
it snuggles up to my pulsating palm.
The last time it enjoyed the sun god’s balm,
he gilded nimble chariots of Rome,
and legionnaires patrolled the city walls
above the river of a thousand miles,
while olives, dates and spices glowed in piles
and glittering fabrics flowed from shaded stalls.
The halls were fashioned of a thousand stones;
so were the roads rolled out to many lands;
and all were laid by many thousand hands…
This eagle’s outpost held ten thousand souls –
A dream of dreams, lifted into the light:
I was in Dura Europos last night.
Christina Egan © 2018
The ruins of Dura Europos above the Euphrates, today in Syria, in 2016.
Photograph by Marina Milella [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
After 500 poems, the usual poem about a Roman Road to start the year!
Der letzte Tropfen
Wein von der Farbe des Blutes, jedoch vom Dufte der Rosen,
Wein von des Abends Kühle, darauf von der Hitze des Herdes…
Halb nur bewußte Gebete murmelnd, vergieß’ ich das Opfer:
Göttern den ersten Tropfen, den letzten dem fernen Geliebten.
Unbekannt sind mir jene, nicht weniger fremd ist mir dieser,
marmornes Bildnis verborgen im Haine heiliger Pinien.
Glatt wie silberne Spiegel und pfeilgerade die Straßen,
welche das mächtige Rom über Sümpfe und Hügel geknüpft hat:
Dennoch führt nicht eine zum Ziel, zum Dache des andern,–
ewig harrt man allein, allein unter schweigenden Sternen.
Christina Egan © 2015
Like every year, I begin this blog with a Roman road…
The poem is written in hexametres, which I find difficult to emulate in English and German.
You can find another story with spilt wine and ancient roads, in the form of an English poem, at Quo vadis?.
Roman mosaic, Bardo Museum, Tunis.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014.
Siegeskranz
Vor fünfzehnhundert Jahren,
da hab’ ich einen Kranz
aus Lorbeer und aus Ölzweig
gelöst und eingepflanzt.
Mein einst mit dunklem Lorbeer
gekröntes goldnes Haar
blieb fortan ungefeiert
und bleichte Jahr um Jahr.
Nach sieben Sommern aber
bot meine Ölbaumschar
die bittersüßen Früchte
mit stolzem Lächeln dar.
Und Völker schwollen, ebbten,
und Rom verging in Rauch;
doch aus dem Kreis von Zweigen
entsproß noch Strauch um Strauch.
Und Bäume blühten, dorrten
und sanken in den Staub;
doch immer wieder grünte
das zähe Ölbaumlaub.
Nach fünfzehnhundert Jahren
betret’ ich einen Hain
aus silberhellen Hölzern
und spüre: Er ist mein.
Christina Egan © 2015
Someone plants an olive grove towards the end of the Roman Empire, comes back to earth fifteen hundred years later — and recognises the descendants of her or his trees, which have survived the Dark Ages and are still thriving.
The narrator had taken the original olive shoots from her (more likely, his) victory garland, for instance for a poetic contest; so they could be an image for a contribution to civilisation in late antiquity which is relevant to this day.
For an English story about the end of Rome and its afterlife, go to The City Lit Up.
Photograph: ‘Olivenbäume in Umbrien’ by Adrian Michael.
Arles im Winter
Die Fensterläden wie ein Farbenkasten,
kornblumenblau und flieder und türkis;
die goldnen Wände, die im Wind verblaßten,
die Gasse, die den kurzen Schnee verschlief.
Die Bogengänge wie bestickte Bänder,
die Krippenbilder wie ein Glockenspiel…
Und das Theater wechselnder Gewänder,
wo nie – seit Rom – der letzte Vorhang fiel.
Die weiche Luft am weiten Strom von Norden,
wo beißendkalter Wind bis eben blies,–
er wälzt sich meerwärts, kostet wohl schon morgen
Kornblumenblau und Flieder und Türkis!
Christina Egan © 2016
The Old Town of Arles is huddled together within the precincts of the Roman city, next to the vast River Rhône and close to its mouth into the Mediterranean Sea – with the churches built of the stones of the temples and the houses built with the stones of the theatre.
Down the funnel of the river valley, there is a forceful and often icy wind, the Mistral; but there is also a mild wind from south, the Wind from the Sea, which may warm up the city in the midst of winter, so that you can sit in the Roman ruins…
There are exhibitions of nativity scenes and figurines in all styles, even contemporary, at Saint-Trophime; in another mediaeval church, a whole side-chapel is filled with a model village with rocks and trees, running water and flickering fire, and hundreds of tiny local people.
I have written another poem on Arles and the Vent de la mer in French and English. This one here may work quite well in a translation software.
Photographs: Arles. Christina Egan © 2011.
The City Lit Up
I lived between Ilex and Salix,
just north of Londinium Town,
and sometimes I climbed to the moss-well
between the oaks and looked down.
I looked at the thatch and the roof-tiles,
as red as the embers beneath,
I looked at the timber and marble,
the highways connecting the heath,
the gates, the walls and the broad bridge,
the fields afloat on the clay;
and I wondered if London would stretch
as vast as the valley one day,
as vast as Rome, which had risen
from marshes and slopes long ago,
with columns touching the heavens
because the gods willed it so;
and if Rome could ever be shrinking
and sinking into the bog,
or London be burning or flooding
and melting into the fog…
The city lit up in the sunset
and faded away in the dusk;
I felt the chill in the oak-wood,
and down to my villa I rushed.
I entered the gate by the willows
and strode through the dolphins’ yard,
I passed the flickering torches
and stopped by my forefathers’ hearth.
My name was Appius Felix,
an heir to Aeneas of Troy;
I kept the seals and the idols
to pass them on to my boy.
I used the sword and the saddle,
I held the lyre and quill.
I lived between Ilex and Salix,
at the foot of the Moss-Well Hill.
Christina Egan © 2016
As you can see from the 100-metre-high summit of the Muswell Hill, London does stretch for many miles nowadays, filling the valley to both sides of the meandering River Thames.
You will also notice that there are large patches of green everywhere, some of them left over from ancient marshland and woodland. If you know your way, you can walk across London through woods and meadows, across hills and along rivers for miles!
My Roman observer lives in modern-day Wood Green or Bounds Green, near fictitious hamlets or villas called Ilex (holly or oak) and Salix (willow or osier).
This man firmly believes that gods guard his city and his country and that spirits guard his home and his family. He pursues some useful career in the service of the Empire, but he is also a bit of a poet.
I named him Appius after the statesman of the Republic who had contributed so much to Rome’s infrastructure as well as intellectual life, and Felix because he counts himself lucky.
You can find more on Londinium’s fortifications at Ode to London Wall and more about its straight or winding highways at Quo vadis?
Photographs: Country villa, late Roman mosaic, Bardo Museum, Tunis. — Pond in Tottenham, North London. Christina Egan © 2014
Ode to London Wall
Moss is conquering your broken stones,
weeds are rooting between your bricks;
but you still stand tall, Wall,
facing the winds, the seasons, the years.
The round foundations of your towers
harbour herbs now, neatly labelled;
but your walkways bore watchmen once,
to guard the goods going round and the people.
You lie at my feet now, tall Wall,
I look down from the walkway above you;
but when I step down by two thousand years,
I see you could shelter me still or crush me.
And then I seem to remember –
we have met before, Wall –
you guarded me indeed –
and I guarded you!
On the treacherous clay we erected you,
in the obnoxious fog and sleet:
even and straight and strong as a rock,
forming a line in the marshy meadow,
forming a square along the vague river,
forming a knot in the net of roads,
from London to Chester and York,
from Paris to Sousse and Palmyra.
O Wall of soldiers and explorers,
O Wall of merchants and accountants:
yes, you still stand tall and you talk,
you tell me to tell your story to all.
Christina Egan © 2015
You can see a section of the Wall of London and learn more about it in the Roman Galleries of the Museum of London. A visit there inspired me to write these lines. I talk to the stones as they talk to me; and I pass their story on.
Photograph: Roman city wall near Tower Hill Tube station,
by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz).
—
London Wall Had Fallen Down
London Wall had fallen down,
brick by brick and stone by stone;
in the crenellation’s crown,
storks and starlings built their home.
London Wall stood in the mud,
but we fixed it brick by brick,
and we filled the wasteland up
with new lanes across the grid.
London Wall was melting down,
but we used it stone by stone;
and we built a bigger town
on the ground of proud old Rome!
Christina Egan © 2015
—
After the end of the Roman Empire, the Roman City of London was left uninhabited for generations, while a new city sprung up next to it; later, the original precincts became the centre again. This area is now known as ‘The City of London’, although it forms only a small part of the centre of town.
This little song alludes to the nursery rhyme London Bridge is falling down.
Le vent de la mer se lève
(Alyscamps, Arles)
Tout doux, le vent de la mer se lève
parmi les colonnes à l’aube de l’an,
dans mon esprit réjouissant
ressuscitant mon ancien rêve,
un rêve de tuiles couleurs du couchant,
un rêve de murs couleurs océan.
Le vent se renforce et lève la sève
des hauts platanes le long de la rue,
ces forts piliers du ciel du Midi…
Mais quel tombeau révèle le rêve,
lieu lumineux et réapparu ?
Ô vent de la mer, Ô vent de ma vie !
Christina Egan © 2015
Alyscamps, Arles. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2010
The Wind from the Sea is rising
(Alyscamps, Arles)
The Wind from the Sea is rising, all mild,
between the columns and graves at the dawn
of the year, stirring up in my jubilant mind
my resplendent dream of antiquity,
a dream of tiles resembling the sun,
a dream of walls resembling the sea.
The wind is now swelling and ready to rouse
the sap in the plane-trees along the wide road,
those pillars supporting the sky of the South…
Which tomb may hold my mystery of old,
the luminous place that has just reappeared?
O Wind from the Sea, O wind of my soul!
Christina Egan © 2016
The Roman cemetery known as the Alyscamps has been immortalised by Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh.
Vincent van Gogh: L’Allée des Alyscamps (1888). Photograph: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
You can read an English and German poem about a Roman road in France at Where Road and River Meet / Überm Fluß .
Christina Egan 
