But as in time each great imperial race
Degenerates, and gives some new one place,
So did this noble empire waste,

Sunk by degrees from glories past,

And in the school-men's hands it perished quite at last.
Then nought but words it grew,

And those all barbarous too.

It perished, and it vanished there,

The life and soul breath'd out became but empty air.

The fields which answer'd well the ancients' plough,
Spent and outworn return no harvest now,
In barren age wild and unglorious lie,
And boast of past fertility,

The poor relief of present poverty.

Food and fruit we now must want
Unless new lands we plant.

We break up tombs with sacrilegious hands;
Old rubbish we remove;

To walk in ruins, like vain ghosts, we love,
And with fond divining wands

We search among the dead

For treasures buried,

Whilst still the liberal earth does hold

So many virgin mines of undiscovered gold.

The Baltic, Euxine, and the Caspian,

And slender-limbed Mediterranean,

Seem narrow creeks to thee, and only fit

For the poor wretched fisher-boats of wit.
Thy nobler vessel the vast ocean tries,

And nothing sees but seas and skies,
Till unknown regions it descries,

Thou great Columbus of the golden lands of new philosophies! Thy task was harder much than his,

For thy learn'd America is

Not only found out first by thee,

And rudely left to future industry,

But thy eloquence and thy wit

Has planted, peopled, built, and civiliz'd it.

I little thought before,

(Nor, being my own self so poor,
Could comprehend so vast a store)
That all the wardrobe of rich eloquence,
Could have afforded half enough,

Of bright, of new, and lasting stuff,
To clothe the mighty limbs of thy gigantic sense.
Thy solid reason like the shield from heaven
To the Trojan hero given,

Too strong to take a mark from any mortal dart,
Yet shines with gold and gems in every part,
And wonders on it grav'd by the learn'd hand of art;
A shield that gives delight

Even to the enemies' sight,

Then when they're sure to lose the combat by't.

Nor can the snow which now cold age does shed
Upon thy reverend head

Quench or allay the noble fires within,

But all which thou hast been

And all that youth can be thou'rt yet,
So fully still dost thou

Enjoy the manhood, and the bloom of wit,
And all the natural heat, but not the fever too.
So contraries on Etna's top conspire,

Here hoary frosts, and by them breaks out fire.

A secure peace the faithful neighbours keep,

Th' emboldened snow next to the flame does sleep.
And if we weigh, like thee,

Nature, and causes, we shall see

That thus it needs must be :

To things immortal time can do no wrong,

And that which never is to die, for ever must be young.

BRUTUS.

Excellent Brutus, of all human race

The best till nature was improved by grace,
Till men above themselves faith raised more
Than reason above beasts before;

Virtue was thy life's centre, and from thence
Did silently and constantly dispense

The gentle vigorous influence

To all the wide and fair circumference:
And all the parts upon it lean'd so easily,
Obey'd the mighty force so willingly,
That none could discord or disorder see
In all their contrariety;

Each had his motion natural and free,

And the whole no more moved than the whole world could be.

From thy strict rule some think that thou didst swerve

(Mistaken honest men) in Caesar's blood;

What mercy could the tyrant's life deserve,

From him who kill'd himself rather than serve?

Th' heroic exaltations of good

Are so far from understood,

We count them vice: alas, our sight's so ill,

That things which swiftest move seem to stand still.

We look not upon virtue in her height,

On her supreme idea, brave and bright,
In the original light:

But as her beams reflected pass
Through our own nature or ill custom's glass.

And 'tis no wonder so,

If with dejected eye

In standing pools we seek the sky,

That stars so high above should seem to us below.

Can we stand by and see

Our mother robb'd, and bound, and ravish'd be,
Yet not to her assistance stir,

Pleas'd with the strength and beauty of the ravisher?
Or shall we fear to kill him, if before

The cancell'd name of friend he bore?
Ungrateful Brutus do they call?

Ungrateful Caesar who could Rome enthrall!
An act more barbarous and unnatural
(In th' exact balance of true virtue tried)
Than his successor Nero's parricide!

There's none but Brutus could deserve

That all men else should wish to serve,

And Caesar's usurped place to him should proffer; None can deserve 't but he who would refuse the offer.

Ill fate assumed a body thee t'affright,

And wrapped itself i' th' terrors of the night,
I'll meet thee at Philippi, said the sprite;
I'll meet thee there, saidst thou,
With such a voice, and such a brow,
As put the trembling ghost to sudden flight,
It vanished as a taper's light

Goes out when spirits appear in sight.

One would have thought 't had heard the morning crow, Or seen her well-appointed star

Come marching up the eastern hill afar.

Nor durst it in Philippi's field appear,

But unseen attacked thee there.

Had it presumed in any shape thee to oppose,
Thou wouldst have forced it back upon thy foes:
Or slain't like Cæsar, though it be

A conqueror and a monarch mightier far than he.

What joy can human things to us afford,
When we see perish thus by odd events,

Ill men, and wretched accidents,

The best cause and best man that ever drew a sword?

When we see

The false Octavius, and wild Antony,

Godlike Brutus, conquer thee?

What can we say but thine own tragic word,
That virtue, which had worshipped been by thee
As the most solid good, and greatest deity,
By this fatal proof became

An idol only, and a name?
Hold, noble Brutus, and restrain
The bold voice of thy generous disdain :
These mighty gulfs are yet

Too deep for all thy judgment and thy wit.
The time's set forth already which shall quell
Stiff reason, when it offers to rebel;

Which these great secrets shall unseal,
And new philosophies reveal.

A few years more, so soon hadst thou not died,
Would have confounded human virtue's pride,
And shew'd thee a God crucified.

6.

[From Verses written on Several Occasions.]

STANZAS FROM THE 'HYMN TO LIGHT.'

Thou in the moon's bright chariot proud and gay
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey;

And all the year dost with thee bring

Of thousand flow'ry lights thine own nocturnal spring.
Thou Scythian-like dost round thy lands above
The sun's gilt tent for ever move,
And still as thou in pomp dost go

The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn
The humble glow-worms to adorn,

And with those living spangles gild

(0 greatness without pride!) the bushes of the field.