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A race renown'd, the world's victorious lords,
Turn'd on themselves with their own hoftile fwords;
Piles against piles oppos'd in impious fight,
And eagles againft eagles bending flight;
Of blood by friends, by kindred, parents, spilt,
One common horror and promifcuous guilt,
Á fhatter'd world in wild disorder toft,
Leagues, laws, and empire, in confufion loft;
Of all the woes which civil difcords bring,
And Rome d'ercome by Roman arms, I fing.
What blind, detefted madnefs could afford
Such horrid licenfe to the murdering fword?
Say, Romans, whence fo dire a fury rofe,
To glut with Latian blood your barbarous foes?
Could you
in wars like these provoke your fate?
Wars, where no triumphs on the victor wait!
While Babylon's proud fpires yet rise fo high,
And rich in Roman fpoils invade the sky;
While yet no vengeance is to Craffus paid,
But unaton'd repines the wandering fhade!

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What tracts of land, what realms unknown before, 25
What feas wide-ftretching to the distant shore,
What crowns,what empires,might that blood havegain'd,
With which Emathia's fatal fields were ftain'd!

Where Seres in their filken woods refide,

Where swift Araxes rolls his rapid tide:
Where-e'er (if fuch a nation can be found),
Nile's fecret fountain fpringing cleaves the ground;
Where fouthern funs with double ardour rife,
Flame o'er the land, and fcorch the mid-day fkies;

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Where

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winter's hand the Scythian feas constrains, 35
And binds the frozen floods in crystal chains;
Where-e'er the fhady night and day-fpring come,
All had fubmitted to the yoke of Rome.

O Rome! if flaughter be thy only care,
If fuch thy fond defire of impious war;
Turn from thyfelf, at least, the deftin'd wound,
Till thou art mistress of the world around,
And none to conquer but thyself be found.
Thy foes as yet a jufter war afford,

And barbarous blood remains to glut thy fword.
But fee! her hands on her own vitals feize,
And no deftruction but her own can please.
Behold her fields unknowing of the plow!
Behold her palaces and towers laid low!
See where o'erthrown the maffy column lies,
While weeds obfcene above the cornice rife.

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Here gaping wide, half-ruin'd walls remain,
There mouldering pillars nodding roots fuftain.
The landskip, once in various beauty fpread,

With yellow harvefts and the flowery mead,
Displays a wild uncultivated face,

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Which bushy brakes and brambles vile difgrace:
No human footstep prints th' untrodden green,
No chearful maid nor villager is feen.
Ev'n in her cities famous once and great,
Where thousands crowded in the noisy street,
No found is heard of human voices now,

But whistling winds through empty dwellings blow;

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While paffing strangers wonder, if they fpy
One fingle melancholy face go by.

Nor Pyrrhus' fword, nor Cannæ's fatal field,
Such univerfal defolation yield:

Her impious fons have her worst foes furpafs'd,
And Roman hands have laid Hefperia wafte.

But if our fates feverely have decreed
No way but this for Nero to fucceed;
If only thus our heroes can be gods,
And earth must pay for their divine abodes;
If heaven could not the thunderer obtain,
Till giants wars made room for Jove to reign,
Tis juft, ye gods, nor ought we to complain:
Oppreft with death though dire Pharfalia groan,
Though Latian blood the Punic ghofts atone;
Though Pompey's hapless fons renew the war,
And Munda view the flaughter'd heaps from far;
Though meagre famine in Perufia reign,
Though Mutina with battles fill the plain;
Though Leuca's ifle, and wide Ambracia's bay,
Record the rage of Actium's fatal day;

Though fervile hands are arm'd to man the fleet,
And on Sicilian feas the navies meet;

All crimes, all horrors, we with joy regard,
Since thou, O Cæfar, art the great reward.

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Vaft are the thanks thy grateful Rome fhould pay To wars, which ufher-in thy facred fway. When, the great bufinefs of the world atchiev'd, Late by the willing ftars thou art receiv'd, Through all the blissful feats the news fhall roll, And heaven refound with joy from pole to pole.

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Whether

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Whether great Jove refign fupreme command,
And truft his, fceptre to thy abler hand;
Or if thou choose the empire of the day,
And make the fun's unwilling fteeds obey;
Aufpicious if thou drive the flaming team,
While earth rejoices in thy gentler beam;
Where-e'er thou reign, with one confenting voice,
The gods and nature fhall approve thy choice.
But, oh! whatever be thy godhead great,
Fix not in regions too remote thy feat;
Nor deign thou near the frozen bear to fhine,
Nor where the fultry fouthern stars decline;
Lefs kindly thence thy influence shall come,
And thy bleft rays obliquely visit Rome.
Prefs not too much on any part the sphere:
Hard were the task thy weight divine to bear;
Soon would the axis feel th' unusual load,
And groaning bend beneath the incumbent god:
O'er the mid orb more equal shalt thou rise,
And with a jufter balance fix the skies.
Serene for ever be that azure space,

No blackening clouds the purer heaven disgrace,
Nor hide from Rome her Cæfar's radiant face.
Then fhall mankind confent in fweet accord,
And warring nations fheath the wrathful sword;
Peace fhall the world in friendly leagues compofe,
And Janus' dreadful gates for ever close.
To me thy prefent godhead stands confeft,
Oh let thy facred fury fire my breaft!
So thou vouchsafe to hear, let Phoebus dwell
Still uninvok'd in Cyrrha's mystic cell ;

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By

By me uncall'd, let sprightly Bacchus reign,
And lead the dance on Indian Nyfa's plain.
To thee, O Cæfar, all my vows belong;
Do thou alone inspire the Roman song.

And now the mighty task demands our care,
The fatal fource of difcord to declare;
What cause accurft produc'd the dire event,
Why rage fo dire the madding nations rent,
And peace was driven away by one confent.
But thus the malice of our fate commands,
And nothing great to long duration stands;
Afpiring Rome had risen too much in height,
And funk beneath her own unwieldy weight.
So fhall one hour at last this globe controul,
Break up the vast machine, diffolve the whole,
And time no more through meafur'd ages roll.
Then Chaos hoar fhall feize his former right,
And reign with anarchy and eldest night;
The starry lamps fhall combat in the sky,
And loft and blended in each other die;

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"Quench'd in the deep the heavenly fires fhall fall,

And ocean caft abroad o'er-fpread the ball:

The moon no more her well-known courfe fhall run, But rife from western waves, and meet the fun; Ungovern'd shall the quit her ancient

way,

Herfelf ambitious to supply the day:
Confufion wild fhall all around be hurl'd,
And difcord and disorder tear the world.
Thus power and greatnefs to deftruction hafte,
Thus bounds to human happiness are plac'd,
And Jove forbids profperity to laft.

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