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II. Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane; and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning
 * The choicest days of life,
 * To soothe a dotard's vanity.

Their an inhuman and uncultured race Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child,—old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends: But what was he who taught them that the God Of nature and benevolence had given A special sanction to the trade of blood? His name and theirs are fading, and the tales Of this barbarian nation, which imposture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing
 * Itself into forgetfulness.


 * Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,
 * There is a moral desart now:
 * The mean and miserable huts,
 * The yet more wretched palaces,
 * Contrasted with those ancient fanes,
 * Now crumbling to oblivion;
 * The long and lonely colonnades,
 * Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,
 * Seem like a well-known tune,