Skip to content
Linespedia

To Rome

Topics: classic

Tell me, proud Rome, why dost these edicts read,             These many laws by prince or people made,             Or answers by the prudent duly weighed,             When now thou canst the world no longer lead?         Thou readest, sad one, of each ancient deed             Where thy unconquered sons their might displayed,             Afric and Egypt at thy feet were laid,             But slavery, not rule, is now thy meed.         What boots it that thou wast of old a queen,             And over foreign nations heldest rein,             If thou and all thy fame no more exist?         Forgive me, God, if all my days have been             Devoted to man's laws, unjust and vain             Unless Thy law within the heart be fixed.                                                                     Cino da Pistoia.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Tell me, proud Rome, why dost these edicts read,..."

James Williams's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "To Rome"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"We sat in the jury-box, twelve were we all,         And the clock was just pointing to ten in the hall,         His Lordship he bowed to the"

"(20 Queen's Bench Division, 494)         When love-sick man descends to folly             And gets engaged, he must not stray,         The jury ta"

"(18 Chancery Division, 109)         Oh for the wily infant who married the widow and made         Profit of coke and of breeze, and never a penny h"

"Those brave old days when King Abuse did reign         We sigh for, but we shall not see again.         Then Eldon sowed the seed of equity"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"We sat in the jury-box, twelve were we all,       ..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.