Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/516

472 On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! too late:

Then raves for * * ; to that Mentor bends,

Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.

Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,

Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.

So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,

Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign 'log.'

Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,

As Egypt chose an onion for a God.

"Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;

Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;

Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme;

Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.

Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.

And Pirates barter all that's left behind.

No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,

Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.

The idle merchant on the useless quay

Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away;

Or, back returning, sees rejected stores

Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores:

The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,

And desperate mans him 'gainst the coming doom.

Then in the Senates of your sinking state

Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.