  Your fathers' guilt you still must pay, Till, Roman, you restore each shrine, Each temple, mouldering in decay, And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine. Revering Heaven, you rule below; Be that your base, your coping still; 'Tis Heaven neglected bids o'erflow The measure of Italian ill. Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice Have given our unblest arms the foil; Their necklaces, of mean device, Smiling they deck with Roman spoil. Our city, torn by faction's throes, Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed, These with their dreadful navy, those For archer-prowess rather praised. An evil age erewhile debased The marriage-bed, the race, the home; Thence rose the flood whose waters waste The nation and the name of Rome. Not such their birth, who stain'd for us The sea with Punic carnage red, Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus, And Hannibal, the Roman's dread. Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood, Inured all day the land to till With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood Hewn at a stern old mother's will, When sunset lengthen'd from each height The shadows, and unyoked the steer, Restoring in its westward flight The hour to toilworn travail dear. What has not cankering Time made worse? Viler than grandsires, sires beget Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse The world with offspring baser yet.
|
  |