Classic Poem

13

Whoe'er thou art that, Man's primaeval state
Belittling, seek'st to magnify thine own,
Forecasting for thy race a boundless date,
Go, view the Roman's VILLA overthrown!
There, on some few Mosaics brightly shown,
Lingers the radiant Venus' conquering smile;
There Cupid Gladiators strive in stone,
Fresh-tinted, as when fountains flashed erewhile
In the wide Court, or cheered the marble Peristyle.

14

Of those proud walls, with splendour once alive,
The rain, the spade, the battle, and the mole,
All else have wasted: only these survive,
The ironic whimsy of some Roman droll.
Yet these had power to sap a Nation's soul!
Not Arms could tame the British freeman's pride,
But all-corrupting Art his fancy stole:
Luxurious Science fought on Slavery's side;
And, as his Culture grew, his manly Virtue died.

15

Petronius! was the subtle mockery thine,
That tells for ever, on this marble floor,
For what vain dust and ashes men resign
Those natural boons no Science can restore?
Well did the crafty tyrant judge thy lore,
Who bade thee leave thy Balae's languid wave,
To brood awhile beside a barbarous shore,
And teach the rude, the generous, and the brave,
How poor a thing is life, how sweet to be a slave!

16

Thou monstrous spawn of Rome's imperial fate
A fiery fancy in a heart of ice!
'Twas thine, when Public Virtue left the state,
To rule the Arbiter of polished vice:
Of base desires to fix the point device;
For Lust and Sloth to twine the laurel wreath;
To publish nameless deeds in terms precise;
Ev'n for thine emptied vein and failing breath
Lingering the sweets of Song — the Epicure of death!

17

Strange fate, if here thy wit a weapon found
To lash the falsehood of thy falling age;
Its puny warfare with mock triumph crowned,
Its hearths profaned, its prostituted stage!
Thy sounder judgement scorned the Euphuist rage
Of honeyed words that ever blind the young:
And, while Conceit obscured the Stoic's page,
False Taste the poet's harp too highly strung —
The Satyr's lecherous art kept pure the Latin tongue.

18

No less I deem not that the Roman Peace
Our island fathers' hearts subdued in vain;
Whose iron hand bade tribal feuds to cease,
Paved the long road, and strewed the golden grain.
Thy equitable rule no orgies stain,
Agricola! no foul Proconsul's greed:
In thee Rome's Rural Genius lived again,
And Sacramental Duty; noble seed,
Henceforth on British soil nursed by a purer Creed!