480

Of Greece self-mangled, turn the sickening eye.
At last, when bleeding from a thousand wounds,
She felt her spirits fail; and in the dust
Her latest heroes, Nicias, Conon, lay,
Agesilaus, and the Theban Friends:
The Macedonian vulture mark'd his time,
By the dire scent of Chæronea lur'd,
And, fierce-descending, seiz'd his hapless prey.
"Thus tame submitted to the victor's yoke
Greece, once the gay, the turbulent, the bold;
For every Grace, and Muse, and Science born;
With arts of war, of government, clate;
To tyrants dreadful, dreadful to the best;
Whom I myself could scarcely rule: and thus
The Persian fetters, that inthrall'd the mind,
Were turn'd to formal and apparent chains.

490

"Unless Corruption first deject the pride, And guardian vigour of the free-born soul, All crude attempts of violence are vain; For, firm within, and while at heart untouch'd, Ne'er yet by force was Freedom overcome. But soon as Independence stoops the head, To vice enslav'd, and vice-created wants; Then to some foul corrupting hand, whose waste These heighten'd wants with fatal bounty feeds: From man to man the slackening ruin runs, Till the whole state unnerv'd in slavery sinks." 500

NOTES ON PART 1

Ver. 57. Civil tyranny.

Ver. 63. The pyramids.
Ver. 65. The tyrants of Egypt.

Ver. 158. A mountain near Athens.

Ver. 142. Two rivers, betwixt which Athens was situated.

Ver. 157. The Areopagus, or supreme court of judicature, which Solon reformed, and improved: and the council of four hundred, by him instituted. In this council all affairs of state were deliberated, before they came to be voted in the assembly of the people.

Ver. 174. Or Olympia, the city where the Olympic games were celebrated.

Ver. 180. The straits of Thermopyla.
Ver. 197. Xenophon.
Ver. 222. Socrates.
Ver. 272, Homer.

Ver. 323. When Demetrius besieged Rhodes, and could have reduced the city, by setting fire to that quarter of it where stood the house of the

celebrated Protogenes; he chose rather to raise the siege than hazard the burning of a famous picture called Jalysus, the master-piece of that painter.

Ver. 442. So the kings of Persia were called by the Greeks.

Ver. 453. The peace made by Antalcidas, the Lacedemonian admiral, with the Persians; by which the Lacedemonians abandoned all the Greeks established in the lesser Asia to the dominion of the king of Persia.

Ver. 459. Athens had been dismantled by the Lacedemonians, at the end of the first Peloponnesian war, and was at this time restored by Conon to its former splendour.

Ver. 470. The Peloponnesian war.

Ver. 478. Pelopidas and Epaminondas. Ver. 480. The battle of Chæronea, in which Philip of Macedon utterly defeated the Greeks.

ROME:

BEING THE THIRD PART OF

LIBERTY,

A POEM.

THE CONTENTS OF PART III.

As this part contains a description of the establishment of Liberty in Rome, it begins with a view of the Grecian colonies settled in the southern parts of Italy, which with Sicily constituted the Great Greece of the ancients. With these colonics the spirit of Liberty, and of republics, spreads over Italy; to ver. 32. Transition to Pythagoras and his philosophy, which he taught through those free states and cities; to ver. 71. Amidst the many small republics in Italy, Rome the destined seat of Liberty. Her establishment there dated from the expulsion of the Tarquins. How differing from that in Greece; to ver. 88. Reference to a view of the Roman republic given in the first part of this poem: to mark its rise and fall, the peculiar purport of this. During its first ages, the greatest force of Liberty and virtue exerted; 10 ver. 103. The source whence derived the heroic virtues of the Ro

mans.

Enumeration of these virtues. Thence their security at home; their glory, success, and empire, abroad; to ver. 226. Bounds of the Roman empire, geographically described; to ver. 257. The states of Greece restored to Liberty by Titus Quintus Flaminius, the highest instance of public generosity and beneficence; to ver. 328. The loss of Liberty in Rome. Its causes, progress, and completion in the death of Brutus; to ver. 485. Rome under the em perors; to ver. 513. From Rome the goddess of Liberty goes among the Northern Nations; where, by infusing into them her spirit and general principles, she lays the ground-work of her future establishments; sends them in vengeance on the Roman empire, now totally enslaved; and then, with arts and sciences in her train, quits Earth during the dark ages; to ver.

LIBERTY.

PART III.

10

HERE melting mix'd with air th' ideal forms, That painted still whate'er the goddess sung. Then 1, impatient: "From extinguish'd Greece, To what new region stream'd the human day?" She softly sighing, as when Zephyr leaves, Resign'd to Boreas, the declining year, Resum'd: "Indignant, these last scenes I fled; And long ere then, Leucadia's cloudy cliff, And the Ceraunian hills behind me thrown, All Latium stood arous'd. Ages before, Great mother of republics! Greece had pour'd, Swarm after swarm, her ardent youth around, On Asia, Afric, Sicily, they stoop'd, But chief on fair Hesperia's winding shore; Where, from Lacinium to Etrurian vales, They roll'd increasing colonies along, And lent materials for my Roman reign. With them my spirit spread; and numerous states And cities rose, on Grecian models form'd ; As its parental policy, and arts, Each had imbib'd. Besides, to each assign'd A guardian genius, o'er the public weal, Kept an unclosing eye; try'd to sustain, Or more sublime, the soul infus'd by me: And strong the battle rose, with various wave, Against the tyrant demons of the land. Thus they their little wars and triumphs knew; Their flows of fortune, and receding times, But almost all below the proud regard Of story vow'd to Rome, on deeds intent That truth beyond the flight of fable bore. "Not so the Samian sage; to him belongs The brightest witness of recording fame. For these free states his native isle forsook, And a vain tyrant's transitory smile, He sought Crotona's pure salubrious air, And through Great Greece his gentle wisdom

taught;

20

Whatever shares the brotherhood of life:
He taught that life's indissoluble flame,
From brute to man, and man to brute again,
For ever shifting, runs th' eternal round;
Thence try'd against the blood-polluted meal,
And limbs yet quivering with some kindred soul,
To turn the human heart. Delightful truth!
Had he beheld the living chain ascend,
And not a circling form, but rising whole.
"Amid these small republics one arose,
On yellow Tyber's bank, almighty Rome,
Fated for me. A nobler spirit warm'd
Her sons; and, rous'd by tyrants, nobler still
It burn'd in Brutus; the proud Tarquins chas'd,
With all their crimes; bade radiant eras rise,
And the long honours of the consul-line.

70

80

"Here, from the fairer, not the greater, plan Of Greece I vary'd; whose unmixing states, By the keen soul of emulation pierc'd, Long wag'd alone the bloodless war of arts, And their best empire gain'd. But to diffuse O'er men an empire was my purpose now: To let my martial majesty abroad; Into the vortex of one state to draw The whole mix'd force, and liberty, on Earth; To conquer tyrants, and set nations free.

90

40

50

Wisdom that calm'd for listening years the mind,
Nor ever heard amid the storm of zeal,
His mental eye first lanch'd into the deeps
Of boundless ether; where unnumber'd orbs,
Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky
Unerring roll, and wind their steady way."
There he the full consenting choir beheld;
There first discern'd the secret band of love,
The kind attraction, that to central suns
Binds circling earths, and world with world unites.
Instructed thence, he great ideas form'd
Of the whole-moving, all-informing God,
The Sun of beings! beaming unconfiu'd
Light, life, and love, and ever-active power:
Whom nought can image, and who best approves
The silent worship of the moral heart,
That joys in bounteous Heaven, and spreads the joy.
Nor scorn'd the soaring sage to stoop to life,
And bound his reason to the sphere of man.
He gave the four yet reigning virtues name
Inspir'd the study of the finer arts,
That civilize mankind, and laws devis'd
Where with enlighten'd justice mercy mix'd.

100

And every passing sun, and Latian scene,
Saw patriot virtues then, and awful deeds,
That or surpass the faith of modern times,
Or, if believ'd, with sacred horrour strike.
"For then, to prove my most exalted power,
I to the point of full perfection push'd,
To fondness or enthusiastic zeal,
The great, the reigning passion of the free.
That godlike passion! which, the bounds of self
Divinely bursting, the whole public takes
Into the heart, enlarg'd, and burning high
With the mix'd ardour of unnumber'd selves;
Of all who safe beneath the voted laws
Of the same parent state, fraternal, live.
From this kind sun of moral nature flow'd
Virtues, that shine the light of human kind,
And, ray'd through story, warm remotest time.
These virtues too, reflected to their source,
Increas'd its flame. The social charm went round,
The fair idea, more attractive still,

110

120

Hence Moderation a new conquest gain'd;
As on the vanquish'd, like descending Heaven,
Their dewy mercy dropp'd, their bounty beam'd,
And by the labouring hand were crowns bestow'd.
Fruitful of men, hence hard laborious life,
Which no fatigue can quell. no season pierce.
Hence, Independence, with his little pleas'd,
Serene, and self-sufficient, like a god;

140

150

159

In whom Corruption could not lodge one charm, While he his honest roots to gold preferr'd; While truly rich, and by his Sabine field, The man maintain'd, the Roman's splendour all Was in the public wealth and glory plac'd: Or ready, a rough swain, to guide the plough; Or else, the purple o'er his shoulder thrown, In long majestic flow, to rule the state, With Wisdom's purest cye; or, clad in steel, To drive the steady battle on the foe. Hence every passion, ev'n the proudest, stoop'd, To common good: Camillus, thy revenge; Thy glory, Fabius. All submissive hence, Consuls, dictators, still resign'd their rule, The very moment that the laws ordain'd. Though Conquest o'er them clapp'd her eagle-wings, Her laurels wreath'd, and yok'd her snowy steeds To the triumphal car; soon as expir'd The latest hour of sway, taught to submit (A harder lesson that than to command) Into the private Roman sunk the chief. If Rome was serv'd, and glorious, careless they By whom. Their country's fame they deem'd their And, above envy, in a rival's train, [own; Sung the loud lös by themselves deserv'd. Hence matchless courage. On Cremera's bank, Hence fell the Fabii; hence the Decii dy'd; And Curtius plung'd into the flaming gulf. Hence Regulus the wavering fathers firm'd, By dreadful counsel never given before, For Roman honour sued, and his own doom. Hence he sustain❜d to dare a death prepar'd By Punic rage. On earth his manly look Relentless fix'd, he from a last embrace, By chains polluted, put his wife aside, His little children climbing for a kiss ; Then dumb through rows of weeping wondering A new illustrious exile! press'd along. Nor less impatient did he pierce the crowds Opposing his return, than if, escap'd From long litigious suits, he glad forsook The noisy town a while, and city cloud, To breath Venafrian, or Tarentine air. Need I these high particulars recount? The meanest bosom felt a thirst for fame; Flight their worst death, and shame their only fear. Life had no charms, nor any terrours fate, When Rome and glory call'd. But, in one view, Mark the rare boast of these unequal'd times. Ages revolv'd unsully'd by a crime: Astrea reign'd, and scarcely needed laws To bind a race elated with the pride Of virtue, and disdaining to descend To meanness, mutual violence, and wrongs. While war around them rag'd, in happy Rome All peaceful smil'd, all save the passing clouds That often hang on Freedom's jealous brow! And fair unblemish'd centuries elaps'd, When not a Roman bled but in the field. Their virtue such, that an unbalanc'd state, Still between noble and plebeian tost, As dow'd the wave of fluctuating power,

170

[friends,

180

190

Was thence kept firm, and with triumphant prow Rode out the storms. Oft though the native feuds, That from the first their constitution shook,

210

(A latent ruin, growing as it grew)
Stood on the threatening point of civil war
Ready to rush: yet could the lenient voice
Of wisdom, soothing the tumultuous soul,
Those sons of virtue calm. Their generous hearts,
Unpetrify'd by self, so naked lay,
And sensible to truth, that o'er the rage
Of giddy faction, by oppression swell'd,
Prevail'd a simple fable, and at once
To peace recover'd the divided state.
But if their often-cheated hopes refus'd
The soothing touch; still, in the love of Rome,
The dread dictator found a sure resource.
Was she assaulted? was her glory stain'd?
One common quarrel wide-inflam'd the whole.
Foes in the forum in the field were friends,
By social danger bound; each fond for each, 220
And for their dearest country all, to die,

"Thus up the hill of empire slow they toil'd:
Till, the bold summit gain'd, the thousand states
Of proud Italia blended into one;
Then o'er the nations they resistless rush'd,
And touch'd the limits of the failing world.

"Let Fancy's eye the distant lines unite. See that which borders wild the western main, Where storms at large resound, and tides immense : From Caledonia's dim cerulean coast,

230

mouth'd,

In Euxine waves the flashing Danube roars;
To where the frozen Tanais scarcely stirs
The dead Meotic pool, or the long Rha,
In the black Scythian sea his torrent throws.
Last, that beneath the burning zone behold.
See where it runs, from the deep-loaded plains
Of Mauritania to the Libyan sands,
Where Ammon lifts amid the torrid waste
A verdant isle, with shade and fountain fresh
And farther to the full Egyptian shore,
To where the Nile from Ethiopian clouds,
His never-drain'd ethereal urn, descends.
In this vast space what various tongues, and states!
What bounding rocks, and mountains, floods and

seas!

250 ;