I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline

Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,

Till came a child who showed an ancient coin

That bore the image of a Constantine.

She lightly passed; nor did she once opine

How, better than all books, she had raised for me

In swift perspective Europe’s history

Through the vast years of Cæsar’s sceptred line.

For in my distant plot of English loam

’Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find

Coins of like impress.  As with one half blind

Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home

In that mute moment to my opened mind

The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome.