Romaios

Romaios

By W. G. Ballantine
Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

’TWAS in the crowded avenue; o’erhead

Thundered the trains; below the pavement shook

With quivering cables; everywhere the crush

Of horses, wheels, and men eddied and swirled.

A river of humanity swept by

With faces hard as ice. I stopped beside

A little push-cart filled with southern fruits

And dickered with the huckster, “Three for five?”

“No, two,” in broken English. There we stood—

He shabby, stooping, wolfish, all intent

Upon a penny, I to him no more

Than just another stranger from the throng

Trampling each other in this fierce new world.

Then looking in his sordid eyes I said,

Using the tongue of Plato and of Paul,

“Art thou a Roman?” Never magic word

Of wizard or enchanter wrought more sure.

The man erect, transfigured, eyes on fire,

Lips parted, breath drawn fast, thrust in my hands

His double handful. Huckster? No, a king!

“Could I speak Roman? Did I share it all—

The memories, the pride, the grief, the hope?”

Then welcome to the best of all he had.

Wouldst know, self-glorified American,

The name that sums the grandest heritage

Race ever owned? ’Tis “Roman” spoke in Greek;

ROMAIOS they call it. Constantine the Great,

Fixed with new capital where East meets West,

Brought Rome’s imperial law, the Cross of Christ,

The art and tongue of Greece—the whole world’s best;

And in that fairest spot new Christian Rome

Reigned queen a thousand years, until the Turk

Fell like a blight, and darkness shrouded all.

But still that name lives in the exiles’ dreams,

All glories, Christian, Hebrew, Roman, Greek,

Blend in that one unequalled Romaios.

Abraham, Moses, Homer, Phidias,

Cæsar, Paul, Chrysostom, Justinian,

Bozzaris, Ypsilanti, Byron, all

Are his. O blessed America, these men

That come in rags, bring jewels in their hearts

To shine resplendent in thy future’s crown!