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 ancient ways, ingulph'd, are feen no more.
Such thy dire plains, thou felf-deftroyer! Foe
To human-kind! Thy mountains too, profufe,
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,
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 Cecubian, nor Falernian, more,
Streams life and joy, fave in the Mufe's bowl.
Unfeconded by art, the fpinning race
Draw the bright thread in vain, and idly toif.
In vain, forlorn in wilds, the citron blows;
And flow'ring plants perfume the defert gale.
Thro' the vile thorn the tender myrtle twines.
Inglorious droops the laurel, dead to fong;.
And long a stranger to the hero's brow.
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; ev'n fleep itself,
Leaft delicate of pow'rs, reluctant, there,
Lays on the bed impure his heavy head.
Thy horrid walk! dead, empty, unadorn'd,
See ftreets whofe echoes never know the voice
Of cheerful hurry, commerce many-tongu'd,
And art mechanic at his various tafk,
Fervent, employ'd. Mark the defponding race,
Of occupation void, as void of hope;
Hope, the glad ray, glanc'd from Eternal Good,
That life enlivens, and exalts its pow'rs,
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 rafh 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 stain'd.
But chief let Rome, the mighty city! fpeak
The full-exerted genius of thy reign.
Behold her rife amid the lifelefs wafte,
Expiring nature all corrupted round;
While the lone Tyber, thro' the desert plain,
Winds his wafte ftores, and fullen fweeps along.
Patch'd from my fragments, in unfolid pomp,
Mark how the temple glares; and, artful dreft,
Amufive, draws the fuperftitious train.
Mark how the palace lifts a lying front,
Concealing often, in magnific jail,
Proud want; a deep unanimated gloom!
And oft adjoining to the drear abode
Of mifery, whofe melancholy walls
Seem its voracious grandeur to reproach.
Within the city bounds, the desert see.
See the rank vine o'er fubterranean roofs,
Indecent, spread; beneath whose fretted gold
It once, exulting, flow'd. The people mark,
Matchlefs, while fir'd by me; to public good
Inexorably firm, juft, gen'rous, brave,
Afraid of nothing but unworthy life,
Elate with glory, an heroic foul
Known to the vulgar breast: behold them now
A thin defpairing number, all-fubdu'd,
The flaves of flaves, by fuperftition fool'd,
By vice unman'd and a licentious rule,
In guile ingenious, and in murder brave.
Such in one land, beneath the fame fair clime,
Thy fons, OPPRESSION, are; and fuch were MINE.
Ev'n with thy labour'd Pomp, for whofe vain fhow Deluded thoufands ftarve; all age-begrim'd,
Torn, robb'd and scatter'd in unnumber'd facks, 230 And by the tempeft of two thousand years
Continual fhaken, let my Ruins vie.
These roads that yet the Roman hand affert,
Beyond the weak repair of modern toil;
Thefe fractur'd arches, that the chiding ftream.
No more delighted hear; these rich remains
Of marbles now unknown, where fhines imbib'd
Each parent ray; thefe maffy columns, hew'd
From Afric's fartheft fhore; one granite all,
Thefe obelisks high-tow'ring to the sky,
Mysterious mark'd with dark Egyptian lore;
These endless wonders that this facred way *
Illumine, ftill, and confecrate to fame;
Thefe fountains, vafes, urns, and ftatues, charg'd
With the fine ftores of art-compleating Greece,
Mine is, befides, thy ev'ry later boast:
Thy BUONAROTIS, thy PALLADIOS mine;
And mine the fair defigns, which RAPHAEL'S foul
O'er the live canvafs, emanating, breath'd.
What would you fay, ye conquerors of earth!
Ye Romans! could you raise the laurel'd head;
M. ANGELO BUONAROTI, PALLADIO, and RAPHAEL D'URBINO; the three great modern mafters in fculpture, archie tecture, and painting.
Could you the country fee, by feas of blood,
And the dread toil of ages, won fo dear; ·
Your pride, your triumph, your fupreme delight!
For whofe defence oft, in the doubtful hour,
You rufh'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 rofe; poffeft of all
Which nature, art, and glory could bestow:
What would you fay, deep in the last abyfs
Of flav'ry, vice, and unambitious want,
Thus to behold her funk? Your crouded plains,
Void of their cities; unadorn'd your hills;
Ungrac'd your lakes; your ports to fhips unknown;
Your lawless floods, and your abandon'd streams :
Thefe could you know? these could you love again?
Thy Tibur, HORACE, could it now infpire,
Content, poetic eafe, and rural joy,
Soon bursting into fong: while thro' the groves
Of headlong Anio, dathing to the vale,
In many a tortur'd ftream, you mus'd along?
* Yon wild retreat, where fuperftition dreams,
Could, TULLY, you your Tufculum believe?
And could you deem you naked hills, that form, 275 Fam'd in old fong, the thip-forfaken † bay,
* Tufculum is reckoned to have food at a place now called Greita Ferrata, a convent of monks.
The bay of Mola (anciently Formia) into which HOMER brings ULYSSES, and his companions. Near Formia CICERO
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