Poem: “The Age Of The Antonines” by Herman Melville

Poems From Timoleon

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American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Poems From Timoleon
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The Age Of The Antonines

While faith forecasts millennial years
    Spite Europe’s embattled lines,
Back to the Past one glance be cast—
    The Age of the Antonines!
O summit of fate, O zenith of time
When a pagan gentleman reigned,
And the olive was nailed to the inn of the world
Nor the peace of the just was feigned.
    A halcyon Age, afar it shines,
    Solstice of Man and the Antonines.

Hymns to the nations’ friendly gods
Went up from the fellowly shrines,
No demagogue beat the pulpit-drum
    In the Age of the Antonines!
The sting was not dreamed to be taken from death,
No Paradise pledged or sought,
But they reasoned of fate at the flowing feast,
Nor stifled the fluent thought,
    We sham, we shuffle while faith declines—
    They were frank in the Age of the Antonines.

Orders and ranks they kept degree,
Few felt how the parvenu pines,
No law-maker took the lawless one’s fee
    In the Age of the Antonines!
Under law made will the world reposed
And the ruler’s right confessed,
For the heavens elected the Emperor then,
The foremost of men the best.
    Ah, might we read in America’s signs
    The Age restored of the Antonines.

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American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Poems From Timoleon

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Poems From Timoleon

The Age Of The Antonines

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