What would you say, ye Conquerors of Earth!
Ye  could you raise the laurel'd Head;
Could you the Country see, with Seas of blood,
And the dread Toil of ages, won so dear;
Your Pride, your Triumph, your supreme Delight!
For whose Defence oft, in the doubtful hour,
You rush'd with rapture down the gulph of Fate,
Of Death ambitious! till by awful Deeds,
Virtues, and Courage, that amaze Mankind,
The Queen of Nations rose; possest of all
That Nature, Art, and Glory could bestow:
What would you say, deep in the last Abyss
Of Slavery, Vice, and unambitious Want,
Thus to behold her sunk? Your crowded Plains,
Void of their Cities; unadorn'd your Hills;
Ungrac'd your Lakes; your Ports to Ships unknown;
Your lawless Floods, and your abandon'd Streams;
These could you know? these could you love again?
Thy  HORACE, could it now inspire
Content, Poetic Ease, and Rural Joy,
Soon bursting into Song: while thro' the Groves
Of headlong  dashing to the Vale,
In many a tortur'd Stream, you mus'd along?
Yon wild retreat, where Superstition dreams,
Could, TULLY, you your  believe?
And could you deem yon naked Hills, that form,
Fam'd in old Song, the Ship-forsaken Bay,
Your  Shore? Once the Delight of Earth,
Where Art and Nature, ever-smiling, join'd
On the gay Land to lavish all their Stores;
How chang'd, how vacant, VIRGIL, wide around,
Would now your  seem? Disaster'd less
By black  thundering o'er the Coast,
His midnight Earthquakes, and his mining Fires,
Than by Despotic Rage: that inward gnaws,
A native Foe; a foreign, tears without.
First from your flatter'd CAESARS This begun;
Till houseless spreads, at last, the Syren Plain,
That the dire Soul of HANNIBAL disarm'd;
And wrapt in Weeds the Shore of  lies.
There  sees no more the joyous Throng;
Her banks all beaming with the Pride of
No generous Vines now bask along the Hills,
Where sport the Breezes of the  main:
With Baths and Temples mixt, no Villas rise;
Nor, Art-sustain'd amid reluctant Waves,
Draw the cool murmurs of the breathing Deep:
No spreading Ports their sacred Arms extend:
No mighty Moles the big intrusive Storm,
From the calm Station, roll resounding back.
An almost total Desolation sits,
A dreary Stillness, sad'ning o'er the Coast;
Where, when soft Suns and tepid Winters rose,
Rejoicing Crowds inhal'd the balm of Peace;
Where city'd Hill to Hill reflected blaze;
And where, with  wont to hold
A genial Strife: Her youthful Form, robust,
Even Nature yields; by Fire, and Earthquake rent:
Whole stately Cities in the dark Abrupt
Swallow'd at once, or vile in rubbish laid,
A nest for Serpents; from the red Abyss
New Hills, explosive, thrown; the  Lake
A reedy Pool; and all to  Point,
The Sea recovering his usurp'd Domain,
And pour'd triumphant o'er the bury'd Dome.