Read "Spartacus" by Leigh Gordon Giltner online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
He stands storm-browed, imperial, chief / Of all Rome's gladiators; brave / Beyond all others; fearless in belief, / A captive--but no slave.
His brow is like a god's--a brow of power, / Lips soft with human sweetness--ere the day / He entered the arena, and the hour / He first beheld man's life-blood mixed with clay.
Felt rise within him bestial strange desires / And savage instincts in a brutal heart / That battened on men's blood; burned with unhallowed fires / Of slaughter--till--a thing apart,
A hired butcher of his fellow men, he stands / Daring the fasting lion in his den, / Or some fierce gladiator on the blood-stained sands,-- / A savage chief of yet more savage men!
He stands, with massive throat and thews of steel, / While loud acclaims the listening heavens fill, / And Roman women smile. He does not know; or feel / A moment's joy or one triumphant thrill.
He heeds them not. He sees as in a dream / His home and Cyrasella's citron groves; / A youth again, beside some purling stream, / With gladsome heart and joyous pipe he roves.
He sees anon that gentle shepherd boy, / Who knew no harsher sound than plaining flute, / In the arena stand--Rome's sport and toy-- / A bestial, blood-stained hireling brute.
Then swift thro' every throbbing, pulsing vein / The fierce unconquered spirit of old Sparta ran. / Rome's fiercest gladiator is to-day again / A Thracian--and a man!