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 Here figur'd fights the blazing round adorn, There his long line of heroes yet unborn. But if a poet of Ausonian birth, Describes the various kingdoms of the earth, Wide intersperst; the Medes or swarthy Moors; The diff'rent natures of their soils explores, And paints the trees that bloom on India's shores. Of his own land regardless he appears, Unless he praise Ausonia to the stars; To all the rest his country he prefers, And makes the woods of Bactria yield to her'shers [sic], With proud Panchaia; tho' her groves she boasts, And breathes a cloud of incense from her coasts.


 * then, ye gen'rous youths, on this regard,

I should not blame the conduct of the bard, Who in soft numbers, and a flowing strain, Relieves and reconciles our ears again. When I the various implements had sung That to the fields, and rural trade belong, In sweet harmonious measures would I tell How nature mourn'd when the great Cæsar fell. When