Roman Portraits

Bright source of life, intelligence, and song, Rolling unseen the harmonious worlds along, By thy benignant will to man was given To rule his earth, and hope thy future heaven: Unlike the camp-born tyrant, who on high Hung his vile law to snare the straining eye, Thou by renew'd examples, broad and clear, As empires rise, decline, and disappear, Shew'st to the creatures of thy breath below What thou permit'st, and they were form'd to know. And since the social system was begun, Whether the many rul'd, the few, or one, Though mighty names, though many a towering state Conspicuous far, at length have bow'd to fate, None yet from time's immeasurable womb Has sprung more great than all-subduing Rome. Kings, consuls, tribunes, and dictators past, In abject slavery she sunk at last. Long ere the Goth had sack'd her strong-bas'd towers, And dulness roosted in Ausonian bowers, Wisdom's griev'd eye foresaw her empire doom'd, When her own walls her ancient worth entomb'd. Sons of proud Albion, studious mark her course; Wind with the gradual deluge to its source; See ere the modest boundaries were pass'd, By virtue reverenc'd, as by judgment traced, How, by her native springs alone supplied, Flow'd through the land her power's majestick tide. Ere vile Orontes to old Tyber's wave Convey'd the supple parasite and slave, And Ind's and Asia's reeking streams by turns Pour'd on th'unebbing sea their gorgeous urns, No shore with rank fertility was crown'd, Unwater'd none, nor by wild torrents drown'd. Think not, though tawdry superstition reigns, Where bold idolatry once aw'd the plains; Though the pale semivir's ambiguous throat Now pipes where Maro rais'd the immortal note; And heaven's pure light, by bigot monks explor'd, Shines less divine than pagan Tully's word; Though all her prouder monuments are gone, Vanish'd her triumphs, and her gods o'erthrown, The warning Muse for unimportant ends To youth a useless retrospect commends. While the keen eye each latent spring detects, And sees like causes generate like effects, In fair array the instructive lessons rise: So taught, 'tis easy virtue to be wise. In your own fame Rome's glories you may see; To shun her fall, detest her luxury. And thou, lov'd isle, where first in careless youth I pluck'd crude berries from the stem of truth, Which yet not quite dispers'd by vagrant wind, Left one fair seed to enrich the opening mind,— Since, by thine own internal vigour freed, Honour and wealth to bonds and sloth succeed; Thy patriots, soldiers for the publick good, And civil arms unstain'd with civil blood; Since now thy fulgent orb, no more depress'd, Vies with thy sister's beam, and gilds the west; Nor ambient Neptune with upbraiding roar Unfurls his billows round thy useless shore; While mild Favonius wafts thy swelling sails, And jocund Ceres loves thy plenteous vales; At least suspend ambition's anxious toil, To greet the muses in their favourite soil: Fame's full meridian is but half attain'd, Till science grace what native virtue gain'd. Vain were the attempt in reason's sober verse The cloudy Roman origin to pierce, Or midst discordant fictions to decree Which wanders least from probability: No petty states of Greece or Rome, but trace Their first great sounder from celestial race; And earth's worst dregs (says vanity) arise From fond commixture with the unconscious skies. Enough for us, that, spread through every clime, In prose expanded, or adorn'd by rhyme, Theme and delight of each succeeding age To us descends the eventful Latian page: A copious mine, where letter'd avarice gains New hoards of knowledge from exhaustless veins.