I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Tears,
    And sighed to see the spectres thronging through;
    But they replied, "You are the captive, you!
We have been free as air these many years."

I watched the billows beat the Adrian shore;
    Each tossed exultingly, then ceased to be;
    And one of them was you, and one was me:
But Ocean lived and thundered as before.

    The Coliseum! There at Caesar's feet,
    The gladiator bowed his pale farewell;
    But pausing there, I mused of Heaven and Hell,
And worlds dismissed to triumph or defeat.

While in the Pantheon I knelt to pray,
    With thoughts of Jove and Jesus much perplext,
A broken Hermes scoffed, "What credence next?"
    And haloed saints lamented, "Who can say?"

To find the Truth, the Truth that cannot die,
    I wandered darkling, wandered everywhere,
Until a statue, through the Grecian air,
    All beautiful, responded, "Here am I."

John W. de Forest