here you go Alf
The Roman Gravemounds
By Rome's dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.
"Vast was Rome," he must muse, "in the world's regard,
Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be;"
And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard
Left by those who are held in such memory.
But no; in his basket, see, he has brought
A little white furred thing, stiff of limb,
Whose life never won from the world a thought;
It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.
And to make it a grave he has come to the spot,
And he delves in the ancient dead's long home;
Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not;
The furred thing is all to him--nothing Rome!
"Here say you that Caesar's warriors lie? -
But my little white cat was my only friend!
Could she but live, might the record die
Of Caesar, his legions, his aims, his end!"
Well, Rome's long rule here is oft and again
A theme for the sages of history,
And the small furred life was worth no one's pen;
Yet its mourner's mood has a charm for me.
Bellemere you saw Camelot in Boston - we saw it in New York during a summer visit - I think it was in 1961 though - Did they have the try out in Boston - well couldn't - the dates don't work - ah so - it and he was magical and in those days the singing voice of Robert Goulet was 'the thing' - That was one play that I thought they did a fine job making into a movie - Richard Harris was a more pensive king than Richard Burton and Nero, with those 'piercing blue eyes' as the saying goes, was so much more romantic then Robert Goulet.
