A mutual mockery, a vap'ry dream,
Illusive, unsubstantial, cold, and vain
As human hopes, like ev'rything of earth,
Passing, unpausing, dying e'en in birth.
That river has beheld the glorious day
When chaste Lucretia's wrongs awoke the ire
That freed her country from the Tarquin's sway;
Upon that bank Virginia from her sire,
Loathing the brutal Appius to obey,
When in his breast there raged a base desire,