Afflict your hearts. 'Tis Rome requires our tears.
The mistress of the world, the feat of empire,
The nurse of heroes, the delight of gods,
That humbled the proud tyrants of the earth,
And fet the nations free, Rome is no more.
O liberty! O virtue! O my country!
Behold that upright man! Rome fills his eyes With tears, that flow'd not o'er his own dead fon. [Afidɛ.
Whate'er the Roman virtue has fubdued,
The fun's whole courfe, the day and year, are Cæfar's.
For him the self-devoted Decii dy'd,
The Fabii fell, and the great Scipio's conquer'd :
Ev'n Pompey fought for Cæfar. Oh, my friends!
How is the toil of fate, the work of ages,
The Roman empire fall'n! O curft ambition!
Fall'n into Cæfar's hands! Our great fore-fathers
Had left him nought to conquer but his country.
JUBA.
While Cato lives, Cæfar will blush to fee
Mankind enflav'd, and be afham'd of empire.
Cæfar afham'd! has not he feen Pharfalia !
Cato, 'tis time thou fave thyself and us.
Lofe not a thought on me.
Heaven will not leave me in the victor's hand.
Cæfar fhall never fay, I've conquer'd Cato.
But oh! my friends, your fafety fills my heart
With anxious thoughts: a thousand fecret terrors
Rife in my foul: how fhall I fave my friends?
'Tis now, O Cæfar, I begin to fear thee.
Cæfar has mercy, if we ask it of him.
Then ask it, I conjure you! let him know
Whate'er was done against him, Cato did it.
Add, if you pleafe, that I request it of him,
That I myself, with tears, request it of him,
The virtue of my friends may pass unpunish'd.
Juba, my heart is troubled for thy fake.
Should I advife thee to regain Numidia,
Or feek the conqueror?
Whilft I have life, may heaven abandon Juba!
Thy virtues, prince, if I foresee aright, Will one day make thee great; at Rome hereafter, "Twill be no crime to have been Cato's friend.
Portius, draw near! my fon, thou oft haft feen
Thy fire engag'd in a corrupted state,
Wrestling with vice and faction: now thou seeft me
Spent, overpower'd, defpairing of fuccefs;
Let me advise thee to retreat betimes
To thy paternal feat, the Sabine field,
Where the great Cenfor toil'd with his own hands,
And all our frugal ancestors were bless'd
In humble virtues, and a rural life.
There live retir'd; pray for the
Content thyself to be obfcurely good.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear fway,
The poft of honour is a private station.
I hope, my father does not recommend A life to Portius, that he fcorns himself.
Farewell, my friends! if there be any of you
That dares not truft the victor's clemency,
Know there are fhips prepar'd by my command,
(Their fails already opening to the winds)
That shall convey you to the wish'd-for port.
Is there aught elfe, my friends, I can do for you
The conqueror draws near. Once more farewell!
If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet
In happlier climes and on a fafer shore,
Where Cæfar never fhall approach us more.
There the brave youth, with love of virtue fir'd,
[Pointing to the body of his dead fon.
Who greatly in his country's cause expir'd,
Shall know he conquer'd. The firm patriot there
Who made the welfare of mankind his care)
Though ftill, by faction, vice, and fortune, croft,
Shall find the generous labour was not loft.
Sitting in a thoughtful pofture: In his hand Plato's book on the immortality of the foul. A drawn fword on the table by him.
T must be fo-Plato, thou reason'st well!
Elfe whence this pleafing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this fecret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why fhrinks the foul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?
'Tis the divinity that ftirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleafing, dreadful, thought!
Through what variety of untry'd being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass I
The wide, th' unbounded prospect, lies before me;
But fhadows, clouds, and darknefs, reft upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a power above us,
(And that there is all nature cries aloud
Through all her works) he must delight in virtue ; -
And that which he delights in must be happy.
But when! or where !-This world was made for Cæfar.
I'm weary of conjectures-This must end them.
[Laying his hand upon his fword.
Thus am I doubly arm'd: my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me :
This in a moment brings me to an end :
But this informs me I fhall never die.
The foul, fecur'd in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The ftars fhall fade away, the fun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature fink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
What means this heavinefs that hangs upon me?
This lethargy that creeps through all my senses ?
Nature opprefs'd, and harrafs'd out with care,
Sinks down to reft. This once I'll favour her,
That my awaken'd foul may take her flight,
Renew'd in all her ftrength, and fresh with life,
An offering fit for heaven. Let guilt or fear
Disturb man's reft: Cato knows neither of them,
Indifferent in his choice, to fleep or die.
But ha! how's this, my fon? why this intrusion? Were not my orders that I would be private ?
What means this fword? this inftrument of death?
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