And scorning the soft trade of mere delight,
O'er all thy temples, porticoes, and schools,
Heroic deeds fhe trac'd, and warm display'd
Each moral beauty to the ravish'd eye,
There, as th' imagin'd prefence of the God
Arouz'd the mind, or vacant hours induc'd
Calm contemplation, or affembled youth
Burn'd in ambitious circle round the fage,
The living leffon ftole into the heart,
With more prevailing force than dwells in words.
These rouze to glory; while, to rural life,
The fofter canvas oft repos'd the soul.
There gayly broke the fun-illumin❜d cloud;
The lefs'ning prospect, and the mountain blue,
Vanish'd in air; the precipice frown'd, dire;
White, down the rock, the rushing torrent dash'd ;..
The fun fhone, trembling, o'er the diftant main; 356,
The tempeft foam'd, immenfe; the driving storm
Sadden'd the skies, and, from the doubling gloom,
On the feath'd oak the ragged lightning fell;
In closing shades, and where the current strays, 360%
With Peace, and Love, and Innocence around,
Piped the lone shepherd to his feeding flack:
Round happy parents fmil'd their younger felves;
And friends convers'd, by death divided long.
To public Virtue thus the smiling Arts
Unblemish'd handmaids, ferv'd, the Graces they
To dress this fairest Venus. Thus rever'd,
And plac'd beyond the reach of fordid care,
The high awarders of immortal fame,
Alone for glory thy great masters strove;
Courted by kings, and by contending states
Affum'd the boasted honour of their birth.
In ARCHITECTURE too thy rank supreme!
That art where most magnificent appears.
The little builder man; by thee refin'd,
And, fmiling high, to full perfection brought..
Such thy fure rules, that Goths of every age,
Who scorn'd their aid, have only loaded earth.
With labour'd, heavy monuments of shame.
Not those gay domes that o'er thy fplendid fhore 380> Shot, all proportion, up. First unadorn'd,
And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose;
Th' Ionic then, with decent matron grace,
Her airy pillar heav'd; luxuriant laft,
The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath. 38;
The whole so measur'd true, so leffen'd off
By fine proportion, that the marble pile,
Form'd to repel the still or stormy waste
Of rolling ages, light as fabrics look'd,
That from the magic wand aerial rise.
These were the wonders that illumin'd GREECE,
Here interrupting warm,
Where are they now? (I cry'd) say, GODDESS, where? And what the land thy darling thus of old?
Sunk! she refum'd; deep in the kindred gloom
Of Superstition, and of Slavery, funk!
No glory now.can touch their hearts, benumb'd
By loofe dejected floth and servile fear;
No science pierce the darkness of their minds;
No nobler art the quick ambitious foul.
Of imitation in their breasts awake.
Even, to fupply, the needful arts of life,
Mechanic toil denies the hopeless hand;
Scarce any trace remaining, veitige grey,
Or nødding column on the defart fhore,
To point where CORINTH or where ATHENS stood. A faithless land of violence, and death!
Where Commerce parleys, dubious, on the shore ;
And his wild impulfe curious Search restrains,
Afraid to trust th' inhofpitable clime.
Neglected nature fails; in fordid want
Sunk, and debas'd, their beauty beams no more.
The fun himself seems, angry, to regard,
Of light unworthy, the degenerate race;
And fires them oft with peftilential rays:
While earth, blue poison steaming on the skies,
Indignant, shakes them from her troubled sides.
But as from man to man, Fate's first decrée,
Impartial Death the tide of riches rolls,
So ftates must die, and LIBERTY go round.
Fierce was the ftand, e'er Virtue, Valour, Arts,
And the Soul fir'd by ME (that often stung
With thoughts of better times and old renown,
From Hydra-tyrants try'd to clear the land)
Lay quite extinct in GREECE, their works effac'd, 425
And grofs o'er all unfeeling bondage fpread.
Sooner I mov'd my much-reluctant flight,
Pois'd on the doubtful wing: whenGREECE WithGREECE
Embroil'd in foul contention, fought no more.
For common glory, and for common weal:
But, falfe to Freedom, fought to quell the Free;
Broke the firm band of Peace, and facred Love,
That lent the whole irrefragable force;
And, as around the partial trophy blush'd,
Prepar'd the way for total overthrow.
Then to the Perfian power, whofe pride they scorn'd,
When XERXES pour'd his millions o'er the land,
Sparta, by turns, and Athens, vilely fue'd;
Sue'd to be venal parricides, to fpill
Their country's bravest blood, and on themselves 440 To turn their matchless mercenary arms.
Peaceful in Sufa, then, fat the * Great King;
So the Kings of Perfia were called by the Greeks.
And by the trick of treaties, the still waste
Of fly Corruption, and barbaric gold,
Effected what his steel could ne'er perform.
Profuse he gave them the luxurious draught,
Inflaming all the land; unbalanc'd wide
Their tottering ftates; their wild affemblies rul'd,
As the winds turn at every blast the feas;
And by their lifted orators, whose breath
Still with a factious storm infested GREECE,
Rouz'd them to civil war, or dash'd them down
To fordid Peace-† Peace, that, when Sparta shook
Astonish'd ARTAXERXES on his throne,
Gave up, fair-fpread o'er Afia's funny fhore,
Their kindred cities to perpetual chains.
What could so bafe, fo infamous a thought
In Spartan hearts inspire? Jealous, they faw,
Refpiring Athens rear again her walls;
And the pale fury fir'd them, once again
To crush this rival city to the dust.
For now no more the noble focial foul
OF LIBERTY my Families combin'd;
But by fhort views, and selfish passions, broke,
Dire as when friends are rankled into foes,
They mixed fevere, and wag'd eternal war:
Nor felt they, furious, their exhausted force; Nor, with falfe glory, difcord, madness blind, Saw how the black'ning storm from Thracia came. Long years roll'd on, by many a battle ftain'd, 470 †The peace made by ANTAL CIDAS, the Lacedomonian admiral, with the Perfians; by which the Lacedemonians abandon'd all the Greeks establish'd in the leffer Afia to the dominion of the king of Perfia.
* Athens had been dismantled by the Lacedemonians, at the end of the first Peleponnefian war, and was at this time restored by CoNON to its former fplendor.
The blush and boast of Fame! where courage, art,
And military glory fhone fupreme:
But let detefting ages, from the scene
Of GREECE self-mangled, turn the fickening eye.
At last, when bleeding from a thousand wounds, 475
She felt her spirits fail; and in the dust
Her latest heroes, NICIAS, CONON, lay,
AGESILAUS, and the THEBAN FRIENDS,
The Macedonian vultur mark'd his time,
By the dire scent of + Cheronaea lur'd,
And fierce-defcending, feiz'd his hapless prey.
Thus tame fubmitted to the victor's yoke
GREECE, once the gay, the turbulent, the bold;
For every grace, and muse, and science born;
With arts of War, of Government, elate;
To Tyrants dreadful, dreadful to the Best;·
Whom I MYSELF could scarcely rule: and thus
The Perfian fetters, that enthrall'd the mind,
Were turn'd to formal and apparent chains.
Unless CORRUPTION first deject the pride.
And guardian vigor of the free-born foul,
All crude attempts of Violence are vain ;
For firm within, and while at heart untouch'd,
Ne'er yet by Force was Freedom overcome.
But foon as INDEPENDENCE ftoops the head,
To Vice enflav'd, and Vice-created Wants ;
Then to fome foul corrupting Hand, whofe wafte
These heighten'd wants with fatal bounty feeds:
From man to man the slackening ruin runs,
Till the whole State, unnerv'd, in SLAVERY finks. 550
PELOPIDAS and EPAMINONDAS.
+ The battle of Cheronaea, in which Philip of Macedon utterly defeated the Greeks.
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