The Fall of Rome

In times like these, it's often a good idea to reach for Auden.
His The Fall of Rome, written in 1947 (and dedicated to Cyril Connolly), could hardly be more apposite, right down to the flu-infected cities:

 –

The piers are pummelled by the waves;

In a lonely field the rain

Lashes an abandoned train;

Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

 

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;

Agents of the Fisc pursue

Absconding tax-defaulters through

The sewers of provincial towns.

 

Private rites of magic send

The temple prostitutes to sleep;

All the literati keep

An imaginary friend.

 

Cerebrotonic* Cato may

Extol the Ancient Disciplines,

But the muscle-bound Marines

Mutiny for food and pay.

 

Caesar’s double-bed is warm

As an unimportant clerk

Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK

On a pink official form.

 

Unendowed with wealth or pity,

Little birds with scarlet legs,

Sitting on their speckled eggs,

Eye each flu-infected city.

 

Altogether elsewhere, vast

Herds of reindeer move across

Miles and miles of golden moss,

Silently and very fast.

* 'Cerebrotonic' denotes a personality type characterised by a highly developed intellect, shyness, introspection and lack of social skills. Today we might place such a person on 'the spectrum' – spectral Cato...?