A few rough sculptures and funereal urns,
Which still are mocked by unimproving Art,
Perplex the mind till tired reflection turns
To the great people dearer to her heart.
Soon as they rose—the Capitolian lords—
The land grew sacred and beloved of God;
Where'er they brandished their triumphant swords
Glory sprang forth and sanctified the sod.
Ev'n yet their tombs, though dateless and decayed,
Allure the northern pilgrim from afar;
Still Contemplation's orisons are paid
Where any fragments of their trophies are.
Nay, whether wandering by the swollen Rhone,
Or by the Thames, we mark the Cæsar's tracks,
Wondering how far, from their Tarpeian flown,
The ambitious eagles bore the praetor's axe;
Those toga'd kings, the fathers and the knights,
Are still our masters, and within us reign;
Born though we were by Alleghany's heights,
Beyond the desolation of the main.
For while the music of their language lasts,
They shall not perish like the painted men
(Brief-lived in memory as the winter's blasts)
Who here once held the hill-top and the glen.
These had their passions, had their virtues, too;
Were valiant, proud, indomitably free;
But who recalls them with delight, or who
Their coarse mementos with esteem can see?
From them and their's with cold regard we turn,
The wreck of polished nations to survey,
Nor care the savage attributes to learn
Of souls that struggled with barbarian clay.
With what emotion on a coin we trace
Vespasian's brow, or Trajan's chastened smile,
But view with heedless eye the murderous mace
And chequered lance of Zealand's warrior-isle.
Here, by the ploughman, as with daily tread
He tracks the furrows of his fertile ground,
Dark locks of hair, and thigh-bones of the dead,
Spear-heads, and skulls, and arrows oft are found.