Beyond the Alps (On the Train from Rome to Paris)

(On the train from Rome to Paris)

Reading of how the Swiss have thrown the sponge
In once again and Everest is still
Unscaled, I watch our Paris pullman lunge
Mooning across the fallow Alpine snow;
O bella Roma! It’s against my will,
Like the tri-lingual Roman cooks who go
Forward on tiptoe, banging on their gongs;
I leave the City of God where it belongs.
O gods, when the breast-thumping blimp unfurled
The eagle of Cæsar, he was one of us
Only, pure prose, and less miraculous
Than those grand tours that our grand parents made
Immortal, when the artist followed trade,
While breezing on his trust fund through the world.