Classic Poem

Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains:
And is this all! Yet THIS was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold,
Afric, outstretch'd from where the Atlantic roars,
To Nilus; from the Line, to Lybia's shores!
Spain conquer'd, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds;
Nature oppos'd her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps, and snows: through these he bursts his way,
And Italy already owns his sway--
Still thundering on,--"think nothing done,' he cries,
"Till low in dust our haughty rival lies;
Till through her smoaking streets I lead my powers,
And plant my standard on her hated towers.'
Big words! but view his figure, view his face:
O, for some master-hand the chief to trace,
As through the Etrurian swamps, by rains increas'd,
Spoil'd of an eye he flounc'd, on his Getulian beast!
But what ensued, illusive glory! say?--
Subdued on Zama's memorable day,
He flies in exile to a foreign state,
With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate
Sits, wond'rous suppliant! of his fate in doubt,
'Till the Bithynian's morning nap be out.
Just to his fame, what death has Heaven assign'd
The great controller of all human kind?
Did hostile armies give the fatal wound,
Or mountains press him, struggling, to the ground?
No; three small drops, within a ring conceal'd,
Aveng'd the blood he pour'd on Cannae's field!
Go madman, go! the paths of fame pursue,
Climb other Alps, and other realms subdue,
To please the rhetoricians, and become,
A DECLAMATION for the boys of Rome!