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Who lies Inhumed in the terrific gloom 



Of the gigantic pyramid ? or who 



Rear'd its huge walls ? Oblivion laughs, and saj-s, 



" The prey is mine." — They sleep, and never more 



Their names shall strike upon the ear of man, 



Their memory burst its fetters. 



Where is Rome ? 

 She lives but in the tale of other times ; 

 Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home ; 

 And her long colonnades, her public walks, 

 Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet 

 Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace, 

 Through the rank moss reveal'd, her honoured dust. 

 But not to Rome alone has fate confined 

 The doom of ruin ; cities numberless, 

 Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy, 

 And rich Phoenicia — they are blotted out, 

 Half-razed from memory, and their very name 

 And being in dispute. — Has Athens fallen ? 

 Is polished Greece become the savage seat 

 Of ignorance and sloth ? and shall we dare 

 « * * * 



And empire seeks another hemisphere. 



Where now is Britain? — Where her laurell'd names, 



Her palaces and halls. Dash'd in the dust. 



Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride. 



And with one big recoil hath thrown her back 



To primitive barbarity. Again, 



Through her depopulated vales, the scream 



Of bloody superstition hollow rings, 



And the scarr'd native to the tempest howls 



The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts. 



Her crowded ports, broods Silence ; and the cry 



Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash 



Of distant billows, breaks alone the void. 



Even as the savage sits upon the stone 



That marks where stood her capitols, and hears 



The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks 



From the dismaying solitude. — Her bards 



S.iig in a language thut hath perished ; 



