Respublica

The strident high
civic trumpeting
of misrule. It is
what we stand for.

Wild insolence,
aggregates without
distinction. Courage
of common men:

spent in the ruck
their remnant witness
after centuries
is granted them

like a pardon.
And other fealties
other fortitudes
broken as named -

Respublica
brokenly recalled,
is archaic laws
and hymnody;

and destroyed hope
that so many times
is brought with triumph
back from the dead.

Geoffrey Hill, Selected Poems, Penguin Books, 2006