SEE diftant mountains leave their valleys dry,
And o'er the proud Arcade their tribute pour,
To lave imperial Rome. For ages laid,
Deep, maffy, firm, diverging every way,
With tombs of heroes facred, see her roads:
By various nations trod, and fuppliant kings;
With legions flaming, or with triumph gay.

70

FULL in the centre of thefe wondrous works,
The pride of earth! Rome in her glory fee!
Behold her demigods, in fenate met;
All head to counsel, and all heart to act :
'The commonweal inspiring every tongue
With fervent eloquence, unbrib'd, and bold;
Ere tame Corruption taught the fervile herd
To rank obedient to a master's voice.

i

HER Forum fee, warm, popular, and loud, In trembling wonder hush'd, when the two * SIRES, As they the private father greatly quell'd, Stood up the public fathers of the state. See Juftice judging there, in human shape. Hark! how with freedom's voice it thunders high, Or in foft murmurs finks to TULLY's tongue.

75

80

85

HER Tribes, her Cenfus, fee; her generous troops, Whofe pay was glory, and their best reward

90

* L. J. BRUTUS, and VIRGINIUS.

Free

Free for their country and for ME to die;
Ere mercenary murder grew a trade.

MARK, as the purple triumph waves along, The highest pomp and lowest fall of life.

100

HER feftive games, the school of heroes, fee; 95 Her Circus, ardent with contending youth; Her ftreets, her temples, palaces, and baths, Full of fair forms, of Beauty's eldest born, And of a people cast in virtue's mold. While sculpture lives around, and Afian hills Lend their best stores to heave the pillar'd dome : All that to Roman ftrength the fofter touch. Of Grecian art can join. But language fails To paint this fun, this center of mankind; Where every virtue, glory, treasure, art, Attracted strong, in heightened luftre met.

105

NEED I the contrast mark? unjoyous view!
A land in all, in government, and arts,
In virtue, genius, earth and heaven, revers'd..
Who but these far-fam'd ruins to behold,
Proofs of a people, whose heroic aims
Soar'd far above the little selfish sphere
Of doubting modern life; who but inflam'd
With claffic zeal, these confecrated scenes
Of men and deeds to trace; unhappy land,
Would trust thy wilds, and cities loose of fway?

C. 5,

ARE

115.

ARE thefe the vales, that, once, exulting states In their warm bofom fed? The mountains these, On whofe high-blooming fides my fons, of old, I bred to glory? Thefe dejected towns, Where, mean, and fordid, life can scarce fubfist, The scenes of antient opulence, and pomp?

120

COME! by whatever facred name difguis'd, OPPRESSION, Come! and in thy works rejoice! See nature's richest plains to putrid fens 125 Turn'd by thy fury. From their chearful bounds, See raz'd th' enlivening village, farm, and seat. First, rural toil, by thy rapacious hand Robb'd of his poor reward, refign'd the plow; And now he dares not turn the noxious glebe. 130 'Tis thine intire. The lonely fwain himself, Who loves at large along the graffy downs His ftocks to pafture, thy drear champian flies. Far as the fickening eye can fweep around, 'Tis all one defart, defolate, and grey, Graz'd by the fullen bufalo alone; And where the rank uncultivated growth Of rotting ages taints the paffing gale. Beneath the baleful blast the city pines, Or finks infeebled, or infected burns. Beneath it mourns the folitary road, Roll'd in rude mazes o'er th' abandon'd waste; While antient ways, ingulph'd, are feen no more.

SUCH

135

140

SUCH thy dire plains, thou felf-destroyer! Foe, To human-kind! Thy mountains too, profuse, 145 Where favage Nature blooms, feem their fad plaint To raise against thy defolating rod.

There on the breezy brow, where thriving ftates,
And famous cities, once, to the pleas'd fun,
Far other scenes of rifing culture spread,
Pale fhine thy ragged towns. Neglected round,
Each harvest pines; the livid, lean produce
Of heartless labour: while thy hated joys,
Not
proper pleasure, lift the lazy hand.
Better to fink in floth the woes of life,
Than wake their rage with unavailing toil.
Hence drooping art almost to nature leaves
The rude unguided year. Thin wave the gifts.
Of yellow Ceres, thin the radiant blush
Of orchard reddens in the warmest ray..
To weedy wildness run, no rural wealth
(Such as dictators fed) the garden pours.
Crude the wild olive flows, and foul the vine;
Nor juice Cacubian, nor Falernian, more,
Streams life and joy, fave in the Mufe's bowl., 165.
Unfeconded by art, the spinning race

Draw the bright thread in vain, and idly toil.
In vain, forlorn in wilds, the citron blows;
And flowering plants perfume the defart gale..
Thro' the vile thorn the tender myrtle twines. 170)
Inglorious droops the laurel, dead to fong,
And long a stranger to the heroe's brow.

C 6

150

1555

166.

NOR

NOR half thy triumph this: caft, from brute fields,
Into the haunts of men thy ruthless eye.
There buxom Plenty never turns her horn;
The grace
and virtue of exterior life,
No clean Convenience reigns; even fleep itself,
Leaft delicate of powers, reluctant, there,
Lays on the bed impure his heavy head.
Thy horrid walk! dead, empty, unadorn'd,
See ftreets whofe echos never know the voice
Of chearful hurry, commerce many-tongue'd,
And art mechanic at his various task,
Fervent, employ'd. Mark the defponding race,
Of occupation void, as void of hope;
185
Hope, the glad ray, glanc'd from Eternal Good,
That life enlivens, and exalts its powers,

With views of fortune-madness all to them!
By thee relentless feiz'd their better joys,
To the foft aid of cordial airs they fly,
Breathing a kind oblivion o'er their woes,
And love and mufic melt their fouls away.
From feeble Juftice fee how rash Revenge,
Trembling, the balance fnatches; and the fword,
Fearful himself, to venal ruffians gives.
See where GoD's altar, nurfing murder, ftands,
With the red touch of dark affaffins ftain'd.

195

BUT chief let Rome, the mighty city! speak
The full-exerted genius of thy reign.
Behold her rife amid the lifeless waste,

175

180

190

200

Expiring