Morituri Salutamus

Morituri Salutamus

...In mediaeval Rome, I know not where, 

There stood an image with its arm in air, 

And on its lifted finger, shining clear, 

A golden ring with the device, "Strike here!" 

Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed 

The meaning that these words but half expressed, 

Until a learned clerk, who at noonday

With downcast eyes was passing on his way, 

Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well, 

Whereon the shadow of the finger fell; 

And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found 

A secret stairway leading underground. 

Down this he passed into a spacious hall, 

Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall; 

And opposite, in threatening attitude, 

With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood. 

Upon its forehead, like a coronet, 

Were these mysterious words of menace set: 

"That which I am, I am; my fatal aim 

None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!"

Midway the hall was a fair table placed, 

With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased 

With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold, 

And gold the bread and viands manifold. 

Around it, silent, motionless, and sad, 

Were seated gallant knights in armor clad, 

And ladies beautiful with plume and zone, 

But they were stone, their hearts within were stone; 

And the vast hall was filled in every part 

With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed 

The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed; 

Then from the table, by his greed made bold, 

He seized a goblet and a knife of gold, 

And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang, 

The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang, 

The archer sped his arrow, at their call, Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall, 

And all was dark around and overhead;-- 

Stark on the door the luckless clerk lay dead!

The writer of this legend then records 

Its ghostly application in these words: 

The image is the Adversary old, 

Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold; 

Our lusts and passions are the downward stair

That leads the soul from a diviner air; 

The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life; 

Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife; 

The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone 

By avarice have been hardened into stone; 

The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf 

Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.

The scholar and the world! The endless strife, 

The discord in the harmonies of life! 

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, 

And all the sweet serenity of books;

The market-place, the eager love of gain, 

Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

But why, you ask me, should this tale be told 

To men grown old, or who are growing old? 

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late 

Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate... 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_print.php?pid=275