SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own fad fepulchre appears:
With nodding arches, broken temples fpread!
The
very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Some felt the filent ftroke of mould'ring age;
Some, hoftile fury; fome, religious rage:
Barbarian blindness, Chriftian zeal confpire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.
Perhaps by its own ruins fav'd from flame,
Some bury'd marble balf preferves a Name;
That Name, the learn'd with fierce difputes purfue,
And give to Titus old Vefpafian's due.
Ambition figh'd. She found it vain to trust
The faithlefs Column, and the crumbling Bust ;
Huge Moles whofe fhadow ftretch'd from shore to
Their ruins perif'd, and their place no more!
Convinc'd, he now contracts her vaft defign;
And all her triumphs. shrink into a Coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conqueft keeps:
Beneath her Palm here fad Judea weeps;
Now fcantier limits the proud Arch confine,
And fearce are feen the proftrate Nile and Rhine:
A Small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd;
And little Eagles wave their wings in Gold.
The Medal, faithfulto its charge of fame,
Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one bort view, fubjected to our eye,
Gods, Emprors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties lie.
With fharpen'd fight pale Antiquaries pore,
Th' Infcription value, but the Ruft adore:
This, the Blue varnish, that, the Green endears,
The facred Ruft of twice ten hundred years.
To gain Pefcennius one employs his fchemes;
One grafps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams:
Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,
Can tafte no pleafure fince his Shield was fcour'd;
And Curio, reftless by the fair one's fide,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his Bride.
Theirs is the Vanity, the Learning thine,
Touch'd by thy band, again Rome's glories fhine:
Her Gods, and godlike Heroes rife to view,
And all her faded Garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, thofe ftudies thy regard engage:
Thefe pleas'd the Fathers of poetic rage;
The Verfe and Sculpture bore an equal part,
And Art reflected images to Art.
Oh when fhall Britain, confeious of her claim,
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame ?
In living Medals fee her wars enroll'd,
And vanquish'd realms fupply recording Gold?
Here, rifing bold, the Patriot's honeft face;
There, Warriors frowning in hiftoric brass.
Then future ages with delight fhall fee,
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree:
Or in fair Series laurel'd Bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.
Then fhall Thy Craggs (and let me call him Mine)
On the caft Ore, another Pollio, fhine;
With afpect open fhall erect his head,
And round the Orb in lafting notes be read: Statefman, yet friend to Truth! in foul fincere, "In action faithful, and in honour clear; "Who broke no promife, ferv'd no private end, "Who gain'd no title, and who loft no friend, "Enabled by Himself, by all approv'd,
"And prais'd, unenvy'd, by the Mufe he lov’d.
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