To The Tiber

On its late (in 1871) Inundation of Rome Well done, old Flood, that, hiding a clear eye Beneath thy yellow veil, dost wend among Those epic hills and dales of seven-topp'd song, To keep watch on the stone eternity Whereof the mortal tenants die and die; One more is gone, the deadliest of the long Line, the foul vast of whose unmeasured wrong Twined to its summit in the triple Lie Of that thrice-cursèd Crown. And thou, brave flood, Enterest a thousand years of carrion To swill away the deeps of dung and blood, And drown the garbaged tribes that stank thereon, That so, at least, the new investiture Be on clean threshold and a hearth-stone pure.