[No One Special]

I think that line made me pause when first I read it several years ago. It was the gee whiz moment when I realized Kipling was dead serious. Notice how he bastardizes the rhyme between “come” and “Rome”. It forces a pause just because we are expecting a perfect rhyme.

[Ohioan]

Yes. It forces you to actually picture the lights going out in the center of the Fifth Century world, even as a primitive tribe is slaughtered. If you are able to picture what you read about, it makes the fine hair seem to stand up on the back of the neck.

Of course, America since 1965 has "accomplished" what it took Rome about 500 years to accomplish on the road to perdition. God Help us; although to be honest, we do not deserve it. We have betrayed the most manifest of Blessings, following those wonder promising Gods of the Market--now prancing in triumph in Washington.