'Tis said that Nero played, and watched Rome burn.
What strains must those have been, what dissonance
To ear attuned to joyous harmony!
He who from out such holocaust could bring
His sense of joy and what to him seemed good,
Is of low type—we cannot call him man.
To gratify desire inordinate
He watched Rome writhe in agony of pain.
We of this later day hold him who thus
Laid low a city for a selfish whim,
A tyrant base, his crime unspeakable.
The blackest page of all earth's history
Bears Nero's name, records his awful deed.
Nero is dead, we say, and Nero's life
Is of the past, belongs to days of old.
But what was Nero? What his crime? A thought
Of tyranny, of selfish power and fame!
And where such thought finds lodge in human mind,
Nero still lives, and men are still his prey.
Today he seeks to build unto himself
A monument, but graved thereon, unseen
To mortal eyes save those awake to truth,
These words: His wealth he gives that men may praise
His name, and in this praise forget their wrongs.
Does Nero burn no Romes today? What then
This blaze of fame that lights the sky full oft
With flame, heaven high, and dazzles all who gaze?
Rome burns today while Nero plays, where'er
Renown and honor, power, and teeming gold
Are gained through others' loss or ill-paid toil.
But Nero's reign is doomed. There dwells with us
The Christ before whose name the pride-swollen powers
Of earth must fall, and man will then appear
Of royal heritage, divine, and free;
Not born to serve or rule, but to reflect
The majesty, the selfless love of that
Creative power whom men call Father—God.
