And what befide felicity could tell
Of human benefit more late the reft;
At various times their turrets chanc'd to rife,
When impious tyranny vouchfaf'd to fmile.
Behold by Tiber's flood, where modern Rome
Couches beneath the ruins: there of old
With arms and trophies gleam'd the field of Mars:
There to their daily sports the noble youth
Rush'd emulous; to fling the pointed lance;
To vault the steed; or with the kindling wheel
In dufty whirlwinds fweep the trembling goal;
Or wrestling, cope with adverse swelling breasts,
Strong, grappling arms, clos'd heads, and diftant feet;
Or clash the lifted gauntlets: there they form'd
Their ardent virtues: lo the boffy piles,
The proud triumphal arches; all their wars,
Their conquefts, honours, in the sculptures live!
And fee from every gate thofe ancient roads,
With tombs high verg'd, the folemn paths of Fame;
Deferve they not regard? O'er whose broad flints
Such crowds have roll'd, fo many ftorms of war;
Such trains of confuls, tribunes, fages, kings;
So many pomps; fo many wond'ring realms:
Modern Rome ftands chiefly on the old Campus Martius.
Yet ftill through mountains pierc'd, o'er vallies rais'd, In even ftate, to diftant seas around,
They stretch their pavements. Lo the fane of Peace,
Built by that prince, who to the trust of pow'r h
Was honeft, the delight of human kind.
Three nodding ifles remain; the rest an heap
Of fand and weeds; her fhrines, her radiant roofs
And columns proud, that from her spacious floor,
As from a fhining fea, majestic rose
An hundred foot aloft, like stately beech
Around the brim of Dion's glaffy lake,
Charming the mimic painter: on the walls
'Hung Salem's facred spoils; the golden board,
And golden trumpets, now conceal'd, entomb'd
By the funk roof.-O'er which in distant view
Th' Etrufcan mountains fwell, with ruins crown'd
Of ancient towns; and blue Soracte spires,
Wrapping his fides in tempefts. Eastward hence,
Nigh where the Ceftian pyramid divides i
The mould'ring wall, behold yon fabric huge,
Whose duft the folemn antiquarian turns,
And thence, in broken fculptures cast abroad,
Begun by Vefpafian, and finished by Titus.
The tomb of Ceftius, partly within, and partly without the
Like Sibyl's leaves, collects the builder's name
Rejoic'd, and the green medals frequent found
Doom Caracalla to perpetual fame :
The stately pines, that spread their branches wide
In the dun ruins of its ample halls *,
Appear but tufts; as may whate'er is high
Sink in comparison, minute and vile.
These, and unnumber'd, yet their brows uplift,
Rent of their graces; as Britannia's oaks
On Merlin's mount, or Snowden's rugged fides,
Stand in the clouds, their branches scatter'd round,
After the tempeft; Maufoleums, Cirques,
Naumachio's, Forums; Trajan's column tall,
From whose low base the sculptures wind aloft,
And lead through various toils, 'up the rough steep,.
Its hero to the fkies: and his dark tow'r1
Whofe execrable hand the city fir'd,
And while the dreadful conflagration blaz❜d,
Play'd to the flames; and Phoebus' letter'd domem,
And the rough reliques of Carina's street,
Where now the shepherd to his nibbling sheep
Sits piping with his oaten reed; as erst
k The baths of Caracalla, a vast ruin.
There pip'd the fhepherd to his nibbling sheep,
When th' humble roof Anchifes' fon explor'd
Of good Evander, wealth-defpifing king,
Amid the thickets: fo revolves the scene;
So Time ordains, who rolls the things of pride
From duft again to duft. Behold that heap*
Of mould'ring urns (their afhes blown away,
Duft of the mighty) the same story tell;
And at its base, from whence the serpent glides
Down the green desert street, yon hoary monk
Laments the fame, the vision as he views,
The folitary, filent, folemn fcene,
Where Cæfars, heroes, peasants, hermits lie,
Blended in duft together; where the flave
Refts from his labours; where th' infulting proud
Refigns his pow'r; the mifer drops his hoard;
Where human folly fleeps.-There is a mood,
(I fing not to the vacant and the young)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy,
That wings the foul, and points her to the skies;
When tribulation cloaths the child of man,
When defcends with forrow to the grave,
'Tis fweetly-foothing fympathy to pain,
A gently wak'ning call to health and ease.
How mufical! when all-devouring Time,
Here fitting on his throne of ruins hoar,
While winds and tempefts sweep his various lyre,
How sweet thy diapafon, Melancholy!
Cool ev❜ning comes; the fetting fun displays
His visible great round between yon tow'rs,
As through two fhady cliffs; away, my Muse,
Though yet the profpect. pleases, ever new
In vast variety, and yet delight
The many-figur'd fculptures of the path
Half beauteous, half effac'd; the traveller
Such antique marbles to his native land
Oft hence, conveys; and every realm and state
With Rome's auguft remains, heroes and gods,
Deck their long galleries and winding groves;
Yet mifs we not th' innumerable thefts,
Yet ftill profufe of graces teems the waste.
Suffice it now th' Efquilian mount to reach
With weary wing, and feek the facred refts
Of Maro's humble tenement; a low
Plain wall remains; a little fun-gilt heap,
Grotesque and wild; the gourd and olive brown
Weave the light roof; the gourd and olive fan
Their am'rous foliage, mingling with the vine,
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