Disastrous still pursue him in the rear,
And urge his soul with horrour and despair.
To us for refuge now he seeks to run,
And would once more with Ægypt be undone.
Rouse then, O Ptolemy, repress the wrong;
He thinks we have enjoy'd our peace too long:
And therefore kindly comes, that we may share
The crimes of slaughter, and the woes of war.
His friendship shown to thee suspicions draws,
And makes us seem too guilty of his cause:
Thy crown bestow'd, the victor may impute;
The senate gave it, but at Pompey's suit.
Nor, Pompey! thou thyself shall think it hard,
If from thy aid, by fate, we are debarr'd.
We follow where the gods, constraining, lead;
We strike at thine, but wish 't were Cæsar's head.
Our weakness this, this fate's compulsion call;
We only yield to him who conquers all.
Then doubt not if thy blood we mean to spill;
Power awes us; if we can, we must, and will.
What hopes thy fond mistaken soul betray'd,
To put thy trust in Egypt's feeble aid?
Our slothful nation, long disus'd to toil,
With pain suffice to till their slimy soil;
Our idle force due modesty should teach,
Nor dare to aim beyond its humble reach.
Shall we resist where Rome was forc'd to yield,
And make us parties to Pharsalia's field?
We mix'd not in the fatal strife before:
And shall we, when the world has given it o'er?
Now! when we know th' avenging victor's power?
Nor do we turn, unpitying, from distress;
We fly not Pompey's woes, but seek success.
The prudent on the prosperous still attends,
And none but fools choose wretches for their
He said; the vile assembly all assent, [friends."
And the boy-king his glad concurrence lent,
Fond of the royalty his slaves bestow'd,
And by new power of wickedness made proud.
Where Casium high o'erlooks the shoaly strand,
A bark with armed ruffians straight is mann'a,
And the task trusted to Achillas' hand.

Can then Ægyptian souls thus proudly dare!
Is Rome, ye gods! thus fall'n by civil war?
Can you to Nile transfer the Roman guilt,
And let such blood by cowards' hands be spilt?
Some kindred murderer at least afford,
And let him fall by Cæsar's worthy sword.
And thou, inglorious, feeble, beardless boy!
Dar'st thou thy hand in such a deed employ?
Does not thy trembling heart, with horrour, dread
Jove's thunder, grumbling o'er thy guilty head?
Had not his arms with triumphs oft been crown'd;
And e'en the vanquish'd world his conquest own'd;
Had not the reverend senate called him head,
And Cæsar given fair Julia to his bed,
He was a Roman still: a name should be
For ever sacred to a king, like thee.
Ah, fool! thus blindly by thyself undone,
Thou seek'st his ruin, who upheld thy throne:
He only could thy feeble power maintain,
Who gave thee first o'er Ægypt's realm to reign.
The seamen, now, advancing near to shore,
Strike the wide sail, and ply the plunging oar;
When the false miscreants the navy meet,
And with dissembled cheer the Roman greet.
They feign their hospitable land address'd,
With ready friendship, to receive her guest;
Excusing much an inconvenient shore,

Where shoals lie thick, and meeting currents roar:

From his tall ship, unequal to the place,
They beg him to their lighter bark to pass.

Had not the gods, unchangeably, decreed
Devoted Pompey in that hour to bleed,
A thousand signs the danger near foretel,
Seen by his sad presaging friends too well.
Had their low fawning justly been design'd,
If truth could lodge in an Egyptian mind,
Their king himself with all his fleet had come,
To lead, in pomp, his benefactor home.
But thus Fate will'd; and Pompey chose to bear
A certain death before uncertain fear.

While, now, aboard the hostile boat he goes,
To follow him the frantic matron vows,
And claims her partnership in all his woes.
"But, oh! forbear," he cries, " my love, forbear;
Thou and my son remain in safety here.
Let this old head the danger first explore,
And prove the faith of yon suspected shore."
He spoke; but she, unmov'd at his commands,
Thus loud exclaiming, stretch'd her eager hands:
"Whither, inhuman! whither art thou gone?
Still must I weep our common griefs alone?
Joy stfil, with thee, forsakes my boding heart;
And fatal is the hour whene'er we part.
Why did thy vessel to my Lesbos turn?
Why was I from the faithful island borne? -
Must I all lands, all shores, alike, forbear,
And only on the seas thy sorrows share?"
Thus, to the winds, loud plain'd her fruitless
tongue,

While eager from the deck on high she hung;
Trembling with wild astonishment and fear,
She dares not, while her parting lord they bear,
Turn her eyes from him once, or fix them there.
On him his anxious navy all are bent,
And wait, solicitous, the dire event.
No danger aim'd against his life they doubt;
Care for his glory only, fills their thought:
They wish he may not stain his name renown'd,
By mean submission to the boy he crown'd.
Just as he enter'd o'er the vessel's side,
"Hail, general!" the curs'd Septimius cry'd,
A Roman once in generous warfare bred,
And oft in arms by mighty Pompey led;
But now (what vile dishonour must it bring)
The ruffian slave of an Egyptian king.
Fierce was he, horrible, inur'd to blood,
And ruthless as the savage of the wood.
Oh, Fortune! who but would have call'd thee kind,
And thought thee mercifully now inclin'd,
When thy o'er-ruling providence withheld
This hand of mischief from Pharsalia's field?
But, thus, thou scatter'st thy destroying swords,
And every land thy victims thus affords.
Shall Pompey at a tyrant's bidding bleed!
Can Roman hands be to the task decreed!
E'en Cæsar, and his gods, abhor the deed.
Say you! who with the stain of murder brand
Immortal Brutus's avenging hand,
What monstrous title, yet to speech unknown,
To latest times shall mark Septimius down!
Now in the boat defenceless Pompey sate,
Surrounded and abandon'd to his fate.
Nor long they hold him in their power, aboard,
Ere every villain drew his ruthless sword:
The chief perceiv'd their purpose soon, and spread
His Roman gown, with patience, o'er his head:
And when the cars'd Achillas piere'd his breast,
His rising indignation close repress'd.

Nighs, no groans, his dignity profan'd,
No tears his still unsully'd glory stain'd:
Unmov'd and firm he fix'd him on his seat,
And dy'd, as when he liv'd and conquer'd, great.
Meanwhile, within his equal parting soul,
These latest pleasing thoughts revolving roll,
"In this my strongest trial, and my last,
As in some theatre I here am plac'd:
The faith of Egypt, and my fate, shall be
A theme for present times, and late posterity.
Much of my former life was crown'd with praise,
And honours waited on my early days:
Then, fearless, let me this dread period meet,
And force the world to own the scene complete.
Norgrieve, my heart! by such base hands to bleed;
Whoever strikes the blow, 't is Cæsar's deed.
What, though this mangled carcass shall be torn,
These limbs be tost about for public scorn;
My long prosperity has found its end,
And death comes opportunely, like a friend:
It comes, to set me free from Fortune's power,
And gives, what she can rob me of no more.
My wife and son behold me now, 't is true;
Oh! may no tears, no groans, my fate pursue!
My virtue rather let their praise approve,

Let them admire my death, and my remembrance
love."

Such constancy in that dread hour remain'd, And, to the last, the struggling soul sustain'd.

Not so the matron's feebler powers repress'd
The wild impatience of her frantic breast:
With every stab her bleeding heart was torn,
With wounds much harder to be seen than borne.
"Tis I, 'tis I have murder'd him!" she cries,
"My love the sword and ruthless hand supplies.
'Twas I allur'd him to my fatal isle,

That cruel Cæsar first might reach the Nile;
For Cæsar sure is there; no hand but his
Was right to such a parricide as this.
But whether Cæsar, or whoe'er thou art,
Thou hast mistook the way to Pompey's heart:
That sacred pledge in my sad bosom lies,
There plunge thy dagger, and he more than dies.
Me too, most worthy of thy fury know,
The partner of his arms, and sworn your foe.
Of all our Roman wives, I singly bore
The camp's fatigue, the sea's tempestuous roar:
No dangers, not the victor's wrath, I fear'd;
What mighty monarchs durst not do, I dar'd.
These guilty arms did their glad refuge yield,
And clasp'd him, flying from Pharsalie's field.
Ab, Pompey! dost thou thus my faith reward?
Shalt thou be doom'd to die, and I be spar'd?
But fate shall many means of death afford,
Nor want th' assistance of a tyrant's sword.
And you, my friends, in pity, let me leap
Hence headlong,' down amidst the tumbling deep:
Or to my neck the strangling cordage tie;
If there be any friend of Pompey nigh,
Transfix me, stab me, do but let me die.
My lord, my husband! Yet thou art not dead;
And see! Cornelia is a captive led:
From thee their cruel hands thy wife detain,
Reserv'd to wear th' insulting vietor's chain."
She spoke; and stiffening sunk in cold despair;
Her weeping maids the lifeless burthen bear;
While the pale mariners the bark unmoor,
Spread every sail, and fly the faithless shore.
Nor agonies, nor livid death, disgrace
The sacred features of the hero's face;

In the cold visage, mournfully serene,
The same indignant majesty was seen;
There virtue still unchangeable abode,
And scorn'd the spite of every partial god.
The bloody business now complete and done,
New furies urge the fierce Septimius on.
He rends the robe that veil'd the hero's head,
And to full view expos'd the recent dead;
Hard in his horrid gripe the face he press'd,
While yet the quivering muscles life confess'd;
He drew the dragging body down with haste,
Then cross a rower's seat the neck he plac'd;
There, awkward, haggling, he divides the bone
(The headsman's art, was then but rudely known.)
Straight on the spoil his Pharian partner flies,
And robs the heartless villain of his prize.
The head, his trophy, proud Achillas bears;
Septimius an inferior drudge appears,
And in the meaner mischief poorly shares.
Caught by the venerable locks, which grow
In hoary ringlets, on his generous brow,
To Egypt's impious king that head they bear,
That laurels us'd to bind, and monarchs fear.
Those sacred lips and that commanding tongue,
On which the listening forum oft has hung;
That tongue which could the world with ease re-
strain,

And ne'er commanded war or peace in vain;
That face, in which success came smiling home,
And doubled every joy it brought to Rome:
Now pale, and wan, is fix'd upon a spear,
And borne, for public view, aloft in air.
The tyrant, pleas'd, beheld it; and decreed
To keep this pledge of his detested deed.
His slaves straight drain the serous parts away,
And arm the wasting flesh against decay;
Then drugs and gums through the void vessels
[pass,
And for duration fix the stiffening mass.

Inglorious boy! degenerate and base!
Thou last and worst of the Lagaan race!
Whose feeble throne, ere long, shall be compell'd
To thy lascivious sister's reign to yield:
Canst thou, with altars, and with vites divine,
The rash vain youth of Macedon inshrine;
Can Egypt such stupendous fabrics build;
Can her wide plains with pyramids be fill'd;
Canst thou, beneath such monumental pride,
The worthless Ptolemæan fathers hide;
While the great Pompey's headless trunk is toss'd
In scorn, unbury'd, on thy barbarous coast?
Was it so much? Could not thy care suffice,
To keep him whole, and glut his father's eyes?
In this, his fortune ever held the same,
Still wholly kind, or wholly cross, she came.
Patient, his long prosperity she bore,
But kept his death, and this sad day in store.
No meddling god did e'er his power employ,
To ease his sorrows, or to damp his joy;
Unmingled came the bitter and the sweet,
And all his good and evil was complete.
No sooner was he struck by Fortune's band,
But, see! he lies unbury'd on the sand;
Rocks tear him, billows toss him up and down,
And Pompey by a headless trunk is known.

Yet ere proud Cæsar touch'd the Pharian Nile,
Chance found his mangled foe a funeral pile;
In pity half, and half in scorn, she gave
A wretched, to prevent a nobler grave.
Cordus, a follower long of Pompey's fate,
(His quæstor in Idalian Cyprus late)

From a close cave, in covert where he lay,
Swift to the neighbouring shore betook his way:
Safe in the shelter of the gloomy shade,
And by strong ties of pious duty sway'd,
The fearless youth the watery strand survey'd.
'Twas now the thickest darkness of the night,
And waining Phoebe lent a feeble light;
Yet soon the glimmering goddess plainly show'd
The paler corse, amidst the dusky flood.
The plunging Roman flies to its relief,
And with strong arms infoids the floating chief.
Long strove his labour with the tumbling main,
And dragg'd the sacred burthen on with pain.
Nigh weary now, the waves instruct him well,
To seize th' advantage of th' alternate swell:
Borne on the mounting surge, to shore he flies,
And on the beach in safety lands his prize.
There o'er the dead he hangs with tender care,
And drops in every gaping wound a tear:
Then, lifting to the gloomy skies his head,
Thus to the stars, and cruel gods, he pray'd:
"See, Fortune! where thy Pompey lies! and oh!
In pity, one, last little boon bestow.
He asks no heaps of frankincense to rise,
No eastern odours to perfume the skies;
No Roman necks his patriot corse to bear,
No reverend train of statues to appear;
No pageant shows his glories to record,
And tell the triumphs of his conquering sword;
No instruments in plaintive notes to sound,
No legions sad to march in solemn round;
A bier, no better than the vulgar need,
A little wood the kindling flame to feed,
With some poor hand to tend the homely fire,
Is all, these wretched relics now require.
Your wrath, ye powers! Cornelia's hand denies;
Let that, for every other loss, suffice; ..
She takes not her last leave, she weeps not here,
And yet she is, ye gods! she is too near."

Thus while he spoke, he saw where through the
shade

A slender flame its gleaming light display'd;
There, as it chanc'd, abandon'd and unmourn'd,
A poor neglected body lonely burn'd.

He seiz'd the kindled brands; and "Oh!" he said,
"Whoe'er thou art, forgive me, friendless shade;
And though unpity'd and forlorn thou lie,
Thyself a better office shalt supply.
If there be sense in souls departed, thine
To my great leader shall her rites resign:
With humble joy shall quit her meaner claim,
And blush to burn, when Pompey wants the
flame."

He said; and, gathering in his garment, bore
The glowing fragments to the neighbouring shore.
There soon arriv'd, the noble trunk he found,
Half wash'd into the flood, half resting on the
ground

With di igence his hands a trench prepare,
Fit it around, and place the body there.
No cloven oaks in lofty order lie,

To lift the great patrician to the sky:

By chance a few poor planks were hard at hand,
By some late shipwreck cast upon the strand;
These pious Cordus gathers where they lay,
And plants about the chief, as best he may.

Now while the blaze began to rise around,
The youth sat mournful by upon the ground:
And, “Ah!" he cry'd, "if this unworthy flame
Disgrace thy great, majestic, Roman name;

If the rude outrage of the stormy scas
Seem better to thy ghost, than rites like these;
Yet let thy injur'd shade the wrong forget,
Which duty and officious zeal commit
Fate seems itself, in my excuse to plead,
And thy hard fortune justifies my deed.
I only wish'd, nor is that wish in vain,
To save thee from the monsters of the main;
From vultures' claws, from lions that devour,
From mortal malice, and from Caesar's power.
No longer, then, this humbler flame withstand;
'Tis lighted to thee by a Roman hand.
If e'er the gods permit unhappy me,
Once more, thy lov'd Hesperian land to see,
With me thy exil'd ashes shail return,
And chaste Cornelia give thee to thy urn.
Meanwhile, a signal shall thy care provide,
Some future Ronan votary to guide;
When with due rites thy fate he would deplore,
And thy pale head to these thy limbs restore:
Then shall he mark the witness of my stone,
| And, taught by me, thy sacred ghost atone."

He spoke; and straight, with busy, pious hands,
Heap'd on the smoking corse the scatter'd bands:
Slow sunk amidst the fire the wasting dead,
And the faint flame with dropping marrow fed.
Now 'gan the glittering stars to fade away,
Before the rosy promise of the day,
When the pale youth th' unfinish'd rites forsook;
And to the covert of his cave betook.

Ah! why thus rashly would thy fears disclaim
That only deed, which must record thy name?
E'en Cæsar's self shall just applause bestow,
And praise the Roman that inters his foe.
Securely tell him where is son is laid,
And he shall give thee back his mangled head.

But soon behold! the bolder youth returns, While, half consum'd, the smouldering carcass burns;

Ere yet the cleansing fire had melted down
The fleshy muscles, from the firmer bone.
He quench'd the relics in the briny wave,
And hid them, hasty, in a narrow grave:
Then with a stone the sacred dust he binds,
To guard it from the breath of scattering winds:
And lest some heedless mariner should come,
And violate the warrior's humble tomb;
Thus with a line the monument he keeps,
"Beneath this stone the once great Pompey
sleeps."

Oh Fortune! can thy malice swell so high?
Canst thou with Caesar's every wish comply?
Must he, thy Pompey once, thus meanly lie?
But oh! forbear, mistaken man, forbear!
Nor dare to fix the mighty Pompey there:
Where there are seas, or air, or earth, or skies,
Where'er Rome's empire stretches, Pompey lies:
Far be the vile memorial then convey'd
Nor let this stone the partial gods upbraid.
Shall Hercules all Octa's heights demand,
And Nysa's hill, for Bacchus only, stand;
While one poor pebble is the warrior's doom,
That fought the cause of liberty and Rome?
If fate decrees he must in Egypt lie,
Let the whole fertile realm his grave supply:
Yield the wide country to his awful shade,
Nor let us bear on any part to tread,
Fearful to violate the mighty dead.
But if one stone must bear the sacred name,
Let it be fill'd with long records of fame.