Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/43

 By the sunk roof.—O'er which, in distant view, Th' Etruscan mountains swell, with ruins crown'd Of ancient towns; and blue Soracte spires, Wrapping his sides in tempests. Eastward hence, Nigh where the Cestian pyramid divides The mould'ring wall, behold yon' fabric huge, Whose dust the solemn antiquarian turns, And thence, in broken sculptures cast abroad, Like Sibyl's leaves, collects the builder's name Rejoic'd, and the green medals frequent found Doom Caracalla to perpetual fame: The stately pines, that spread their branches wide In the dun ruins of its ample halls, Appear but tufts, as may whate'er is high Sink in comparison, minute and vile. These and unnumber'd, yet their brows uplift, Rent of their graces; as Britannia's oaks On Merlin's mount, or Snowden's rugged sides, Stand in the clouds, their branches scatter'd round After the tempest; Mausoleums, Cirques, Naumachios, Forums; Trajan's column tall, From whose low base the sculptures wind aloft, And lead thro' various toils up the rough steep Its hero to the skies; and his dark tow'r Whose execrable hand the City fir'd, And while the dreadful conflagration blaz'd Play'd to the flames; and Phœbus' letter'd dome; And the rough relics of Carinas's street, Where now the shepherd to his nibbling sheep Sits piping with his oaten reed, as erst There pip'd the shepherd to his nibbling sheep, When th' humble roof Anchises' son explor'd Of good Evander, wealth-despising king! Amid the thickets: so revolves the scene; So Time ordains, who rolls the things of pride