Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/38

 Now weeps in vain; their country calls to arms. Such virtue Clelia, Cocles, Manlius, rouz'd; Such were the Fabii, Decii; so inspir'd The Scipios battled, and the Gracchi spoke: So rose the Roman state. Me now, of these Deep musing, high ambitious thoughts inflame Greatly to serve my country, distant land, And build me virtuous fame; nor shall the dust Of these fall'n piles with show of sad decay Avert the good resolve, mean argument, The fate alone of matter. Now the brow We gain enraptur'd; beauteously distinct The num'rous porticoes and domes upswell, With obelisks and columns interpos'd, And pine, and fir, and oak; so fair a scene Sees not the dervise from the spiral tomb Of ancient Chammos, while his eye beholds Proud Memphis' relics o'er th' Egyptian plain; Nor hoary hermit from Hymettus' brow, Tho' graceful Athens in the vale beneath. Along the windings of the Muse's stream, Lucid Ilyssus weeps her silent schools And groves, unvisited by bard or sage. Amid the tow'ry ruins, huge, supreme, Th' enormous amphitheatre behold, Mountainous pile! o'er whose capacious womb Pours the broad firmament its vary'd light, While from the central floor the seats ascend Round above round, slow wid'ning to the verge, A circuit vast and high; nor less had held Imperial Rome and her attendant realms, When, drunk with rule, she will'd the fierce delight, And op'd the gloomy caverns, whence out rush'd, Before th' innumerable shouting crowd, The fiery madded tyrants of the wilds,