George Walter Thornbury

“ The gladiators cut and gashed are resting in their cells,
The tridents and the gory nets, the axes and the swords,
Are lying in a dusty heap beside the hooks and cords.
The people laugh;—the senator, the juggler, and the mime,
The cobbler and the augur’s man, the actors jest and rhyme;
The bath slaves and the soldiers sit shouldering seat by seat,
The drover and the fisherman, the thief and boxer meet. ”

“ In vain the slaves from swaying roof rain the sweet scented dew;
The gladiators, quaffing draughts of myrrh and Sabine wine,
Felt that a gloom was on the Plebs, and dread the fatal sign.
For storms had kept the corn fleet back, the Plebs was hard to please,
From Cæsar to the meanest churl, not one seemed at his ease;
All day the thumbs had been turned down, howe’er a man might fight,
For hungry folks are sour and sad, and full of spleen and spite.
They murmur for some newer thing, some combination wild,
A snake and wild cat, or a cub, to grapple with a child ”