GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia, November 1850

NERO'S FRIEND.

BY C. N. BROOME.

IT IS a circumstance connected with the history of Nero that, every spring and summer for many years after his death, fresh and beautiful flowers were strewn upon his grave by some unknown hand. Tradition relates that it was done by a young maiden of Corinth, named Acte, who had been brought to Rome by Nero from her native city, whither he had gone, in the disguise of an artist, to contend in the Nemean, Isthmian, and floral games which were celebrated there; and whence he returned conqueror in the Palaesbra, the chariot race, and the song - bearing with him, like Jason of old, a second Medea, divine in form and feature as the first, and who, like her, had left father, friends, and country to follow a stranger.

Even the worse than savage barbarity of this sanguinary tyrant had not cut him off from all human affection, and those flowers were doubtless the tribute of that young girl's holy and enduring love.

"Whose name is on yon lettered stone, whose ashes

rest beneath,

That thus you come to deck with flowers the mournful

home of death?

And thou - why darkens so thy brow with griefs untimely

gloom?

Thou art fitter for a bride than for a watcher by the

tomb."

"It is the name of one whose deeds made men grow

pale with fear,

And Nero's, stranger, is the dust that lies sepulchred

here:

That name may be a word of harsh and boding sound

to thee-

But oh, it has a more than mortal melody for me!

"And I - my heart has grown to age in girlhood's fleeting

years,

And has one only task - to bathe its buried love in

tears;

The all of life that yet remains to me is but its

breath;

Then, tell me, is it meet that I should seek the bridal

wreath?"

"But, maiden, he of whom you speak was of a savage

mood,

That took its joy alone in scenes of carnage, tears, and

blood;

His heart and mind were steeped in crimes of sin's

most loathsome hue,

And love is for the high of soul - the gentle and the

true."

"I knew not till my heart was his the darkness of his

own,

Nor dreamed that he who knelt to me was master of a

throne;

And when the fearful knowledge came, its coming was

in vain,

I had forsaken all for him, and would do so again.

"I saw him first beside the sea, near to my father's

home,

When, like some ocean Deity, he bounded from the

foam;

Even then a glory seemed to breathe around him as he

trod,

And my haughty soul was bowed as in the presence of

a god.

"The voice that taught an abject world to tremble at

its words

To me was mild and musical, and mellow as a bird's-

A bird's that, couched among the green, broad branches

of the date,

Tells, in its silvery songs, its gushing gladness to its

mate.

"Go, stranger, ask the waves to tell thee of the depths

they shroud;

Go, from the sunbeam steal its warmth, its lightning

from the cloud;

Strive, till the warring elements have yielded to thine

art;

But think not thou canst wring its secret treasures

from the heart.

"Is love the offspring of the will? or is it like a flower,

So frail that it may fade and be forgotten in an hour?

No! no! it springs unbidden, where the heart's deep

fountains play,

And, cherished by their hallowed dew, it cannot pass

away!"

Godey's Lady's Book is brought to you by

Your Comments Welcomed! Copyright © 1995 EHP