Deluded thousands starve, all age be-grim'd,
Torn, robb'd, and scatter'd in unnumber'd facks, 230
And by the tempeft of two thousand years

Continual shaken, let My ruins vie,
These roads that yet the Roman hand affert,
Beyond the weak repair of modern toil;
These fractured arches, that the chiding stream 235
No more delighted hear; these rich remains
Of marbles now unknown, where shines, imbib'd,
Each parent ray; these massy columns, hew'd
From Afric's farthest shore; one granite all
These obelisks high-towering to the sky,
Mysterious mark'd with dark Egyptian lore;
These endless wonders that this * Sacred Way
Illumine still, and confecrate to fame;
These fountains, vafes, urns, and statues, charg'd
With the fine ftores of art-completing Greece: 245
Mine is, besides, thy every later boast;
Thy Buonarotis, thy Palladios, Mine;

240

And Mine the fair designs which Raphael's + foul O'er the live canvass, emanating, breath'd.

What would you say, ye Conquerors of earth! Ye Romans! could you raise the laurel'd head? 251 Could you the country fee, by feas of blood, And the dread toil of ages, won so dear,

Your pride, your triumph, your fupreme delight!
For whose defence oft', in the doubtful hour, 255
You rush'd with rapture down the gulf of Fate,
Of death ambitious! till by awful deeds,
Virtues and courage, that amaze mankind,
The Queen of Nations rose, possest of all
Which Nature, Art, and Glory, could bestow! 260
What would you say, deep in the last abyss
Of flavery, vice, and unambitious want,
Thus to behold her funk? Your crowded plains
Void of their cities, unadorn'd your hills,
264
Ungrac'd your lakes, your ports to ships unknown,
Your lawless floods, and your abandon'd streams,
These could you know? these could you love again ?
Thy Tiber, Horace! could it now inspire
Content, poetic ease, and rural joy,

Soon bursting into song, while thro' the groves 270
Of headlong Anio, dashing to the vale,
In many a tortur'd stream you mus'd along?

Yon' wild retreat, where Superstition dreams,
Could, Tully! you your Tusculum * believe?
And could you deem yon' naked hills, that form,275
Fam'd in old fong, the ship-forsaken bay +,
Your Formian shore, once the delight of earth,

* Tufculum is reckoned to have stood at a place now called Grotta Ferrata, a convent of Monks.

+ The bay of Mola (anciently Formiae) into which Homer brings Ulyffes and his companions. Near Formiae Cicero had a villa.

285

Where Art and Nature, ever-smiling, join'd
On the gay land to lavish all their stores ?
How chang'd, how vacant, Virgil! wide around,
Would now your Naples seem? disaster'd less 281
By black Vefuvius thundering o'er the coaft,
His midnight earthquakes and his mining fires,
Than by defpotic rage*; that inward gnaws,
A native foe; a foreign tears without.
First from your flattered Cæfars this began,
Till, doom'd to tyrants an eternal prey,
Thin-peopled spreads, at last, the fyren plain +
That the dire foul of Hannibal disarm'd,
And wrapt in weeds the shore of Venus lies ‡. 290
There Baiae fees no more the joyous throng,
Her banks all beaming with the pride of Rome:
No generous vines now bask along the hills,
Where sport the breezes of the Tyrrhene main :
With baths and temples mixt, no villas rife; 295
Nor, art-fustain'd amid reluctant waves,
Draw the cool murmurs of the breathing deep :
No fpreading ports their facred arms extend;
No mighty moles the big intrusive storm,
From the calm station, roll resounding back.
An almost total defolation fits,

* Naples, then under the Austrian government.

+ Campagna Felice, adjoining to Capua.

The coast of Baiae, which was formerly adorned with the works mentioned in the following lines; and where, amidst many magnificent ruins, those of a temple erected to Venus are ftill to be seen.

3°5

310

A dreary stilless, saddening o'er the coast;
Where*, when soft suns and tepid winters rose,
Rejoicing crowds inhal'd the balm of peace;
Where city'd hill to hill reflected blaze;
And where, with Ceres, Bacchus wont to hold
A genial strife. Her youthful form, robust,
Even Nature yields, by fire and earthquake rent ;
Whole stately cities in the dark abrupt
Swallow'd at once, or vile in rubbish laid,
A nest for ferpents; from the red abyss
New hills, explosive, thrown; the Lucrine lake
A reedy pool, and all to Cuma's point
The fea recovering his ufurp'd domain,
And pour'd triumphant o'er the bury'd dome. 315
Hence, Britain! learn, My best-establish'd, last,
And, more than Greece or Rome, My steady reign;
The land where, king and people equal bound
By guardian laws, my fullest blessings flow,
And where My jealous unfubmitting foul,
The dread of tyrants! burns in every breast:
Learn hence, if such the miferable fate
Of an heroic race, the masters once
Of human-kind, what, when depriv'd of Me,
How grievous must be thine? In spite of climes, 325
Whose fun-enliven'd ether wakes the foul
To higher powers, in fpite of happy foils

320

That, but by Labour's flightest aid impell'd,
With treasures teem to thy cold clime unknown,
If there desponding fail the common arts
And fustenance of life, could life itself,
Far less a thoughtless tyrant's hollow pomp,
Subsist with thee? Against depressing skies,
Join'd to full spread Oppression's cloudy brow,
How could thy spirits hold? where vigour find 335
Forc'd fruits to tear from their unnative foil?

330

Or, storing every harvest in thy ports,
To plough the dreadful all-producing wave?

Here paus'd the goddess: by the pause assur'd, In trembling accents thus I mov'd my prayer: 340 "Oh! first, and most benevolent of powers! "Come from eternal splendours, here on earth, "Against despotic pride, and rage, and lust, "To shield mankind, to raise them to affert "The native rights and honour of their race, 345 "Teach me, thy lowest subject, but in zeal " Yielding to none, the progress of thy reign, "And with a strain from thee enrich the Muse. "As thee alone she serves, her patron, thou, "And great inspirer, be! then will she joy, "Tho' narrow life her lot, and private shade, "And when her venal voice she barters vile,

"Or to thy open or thy fecret foes,

350

"May ne'er those facred raptures touch her more, " By flavish hearts unfelt! and may her fong

355