Caligula

My namesake, Little Boot, Caligula,
you disappoint me, tell me what I saw
to make me like you when we met in school?
I took your name, poor odd-ball, poor spoiled fool,
my prince, young innocent and bowdlerized!
Your true face sneers at me, mean, thin, agonized,
the rusty Roman medal where I see
my lowest depths of possibility.

What can be salvaged from your life? A pain
that gently darkens over heart and brain,
a fairy's touch, a cobweb's weight of pain,
now makes me tremble at your right to live.
I live your last night. Sleepless fugitive,
your purple bedclothes and imperial eagle
grow so familiar they are home. Your regal
hand accepts my hand. You bend my wrist,
and tear the tendons with your strangler's twist...
You stare down the hallways, mile on stoney mile,
where the statures of gods return your smile.
Why did you smash their heads and give them yours?
You hear your household panting on all fours,
and itemize your features - sleep's old aide!
Item: your body hairy, badly made,
head hairless, smoother than your marble head;
Item: eyes hollow, hollow temple, red
cheeks rough with rouge, spindly legs, hands that leave
a clammy snail's trail on your soggy sleeve...
a hand no hand will hold... nose  thin, thin neck -
you wish the Romans had a single neck! 
Small thing, where are you? Child, you sucked your thumb
and couldn't sleep unless you hugged your numb
and woolly-witted toys of your small zoo.
There was some reason then to fondle you
before you found the death-mask for your play.
Lie very still, sleep with clasped hands and pray
for nothing, Child! Think, even at the end, good dreams
were faithful. You betray no friend
now that no  animal will share your bed.
Don't think!... And yet the God Adonis bled
and lay beside you forcing you to strip.
You felt his gored thigh spurting on your hip.
Your mind burned, you were God, a thousand plans
ran zig-zag, zig-zag. You began to dance
for joy, and called your menials to arrange
death for the gods. You worshiped your great change,
took a bath and rolled your genitals
until they shrank to marbles...

                                              Animals
fattened for your arenas suffered less
than you in dying - yours the lawlessness
of something simple that has lost its law,
my namesake, and the last Caligula.

Robert Lowell