Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/34



Aspice murorum moles, præruptaque saxa, Obrutaque horrenti vasta theatra situ: Hæc sunt Roma. Viden' velut ipsa cadavera tantæ Urbis adhuc spirent imperiosa minas?"—Author:Janus Vitalis.

["Look at all the walls, the stones dislodged, the vast theatres brought low by the power of decay. That is Rome. And do you see how the very corpse of such a city is still imperial and seems to offer menaces?"]

of Grongar, and the shady dales Of winding Towy, Merlin's fabled haunt, I sung inglorious. Now the love of arts, And what in metal or in stone remains Of proud Antiquity, thro' various realms And various languages and ages fam'd, Bears me remote o'er Gallia's woody bounds, O'er the cloud-piercing Alps remote, beyond The vale of Arno, purpled with the vine, Beyond the Umbrian and Etruscan hills, To Latium's wide champaign, forlorn and waste, Where yellow Tiber his neglected wave Mournfully rolls. Yet once again, my Muse! Yet once again, and soar a loftier flight; Lo! the resistless theme, imperial Rome. Fall'n, fall'n, a silent heap! her heroes all Sunk in their urns; behold the pride of pomp,