Classic Poem

I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him--he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
Were with his heart and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude but by the Danube lay,
There were his young-barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday--
All this rushed with his blood--Shall he expire
And unavenged?--Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!