Belisarius

I am poor and old and blind;     The sun burns me, and the wind         Blows through the city gate     And covers me with dust     From the wheels of the august         Justinian the Great.     It was for him I chased     The Persians o'er wild and waste,         As General of the East;     Night after night I lay     In their camps of yesterday;         Their forage was my feast.     For him, with sails of red,     And torches at mast-head,         Piloting the great fleet,     I swept the Afric coasts     And scattered the Vandal hosts,         Like dust in a windy street.     For him I won again     The Ausonian realm and reign,         Rome and Parthenope;     And all the land was mine     From the summits of Apennine         To the shores of either sea.     For him, in my feeble age,     I dared the battle's rage,         To save Byzantium's state,     When the tents of Zabergan,     Like snow-drifts overran         The road to the Golden Gate.     And for this, for this, behold!     Infirm and blind and old,         With gray, uncovered head,     Beneath the very arch     Of my triumphal march,         I stand and beg my bread!     Methinks I still can hear,     Sounding distinct and near,         The Vandal monarch's cry,     As, captive and disgraced,     With majestic step he paced,--         "All, all is Vanity!"     Ah! vainest of all things     Is the gratitude of kings;         The plaudits of the crowd     Are but the clatter of feet     At midnight in the street,         Hollow and restless and loud.     But the bitterest disgrace     Is to see forever the face         Of the Monk of Ephesus!     The unconquerable will     This, too, can bear;--I still         Am Belisarius!