Before your questioning and weary eyes,
the vision set a bloodstained, Roman cross;
a bloodied robe; a twisted ring of thorns
with flecks of blood caked on their stiff, sharp tips:
your tired mind staggers as you realize
this conflict must conclude to Egypt's loss.
Raise up the mournful penant; order horns
to sound the dismal note that turns the ships
to Alexandria---ignoble retreat.
Lord Antony has been soundly defeated.
His cherished scheme is not simply undone
just to bring triumph to Octavian---
or satisfy his vengeance and conceit:
but that a greater Plan shall be completed.
Starward
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
Scholars still debate how the greatest strategic thinker Rome had produced---Mark Antony---was so easily defeated, at Actium, by the far less skilled Octavian, and his less experienced fleet captain, Marcus Agrippa. But this defeat was necessary to prepare the way of the Cross, the Roman way, in the life of Christ. In an Alexandrian administration, the Roman issues that prompted Pilate to allow the Crucifixion would not have been present and active.
I just realized that the components of the first line of this poem were actually inspired by an engraving done by Gustave Dore, showing the cross prone on the ground (not historically accurate), after, presumably, Christ's Body has been removed: His robe and the crown of thorns are laid across and near it, respectively. I have loved and cherished this image of Salvation since I was five years old, over half a century ago. I was not consciously thinking of it when I wrote the poem earlier today, but there they are.
