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V.

THE DOOM OF REGULUS.

We knew he reigned supreme on high

When Jove in thunder spoke; Augustus is our deity

On earth; 'tis he who broke The distant Briton to his sway,

And made the savage Mede obey.

Have not the men whom Crassus led-
Alas, what shame and grief!-
With foreign damsels dared to wed?
And 'neath a Persian chief,

Grey-headed grown in barbarous lands,
The Marsian and the Apulian stands.

Forgotten are the sacred shields,
The shields that fell from heaven;

The glories that the toga yields

Are all from memory driven ;

And Vesta's everlasting flame,

Though Jove stands firm, and Rome the same.

But Regulus foresaw the ill,

What time he laughed to scorn

Base terms of peace, and counselled still

For ages yet unborn,

And knew the woes of after years,

If captive's doom were changed by tears.

'These eyes have seen,' the hero cried, The banners bright of Rome, Placed Carthaginian shrines beside, Adorn a foreign home,

And weapons taken by the foe,—
Ah! weapons seized without a blow.

'And I have seen his arms fast bound
Behind the freeman's back;
And open gates secure I found ;
And fields we used to sack,
I saw them, wasted as they were,
Revive beneath the tiller's care.

'Say, has the ransomed warrior fought As bravely as before?

It is a wrong and fatal thought

To send him back to war.
In vain the faded fleece we stain;
No dye will bring its hues again.

'So when true valour once has fled,
And left the soldier's breast,
She'll not return to find instead

Herself a coward's guest.

If when she's freed from hunter's nets The stricken hind her wounds forgets,

'Then he who once his arms and life

Has yielded to the foe

May yet again be brave in strife

And deal a fatal blow;

He who has felt the conqueror tie

His dastard limbs, nor dared to die.

'He fears to trust his sword alone,
Makes peace instead of war ;

O Romans, how are ye undone !
O Carthage, nobler far!

How proudly dost thou soar on high
Above our ruined Italy !'

They say that from his weeping bride

The hero hid his face,

His little sons he put aside

And cared not to embrace,

But fixed his gaze upon the ground,
No freeman, but a captive bound;

Until his counsel might persuade
(Advice before ne'er given)
The senators, whose breasts dismayed
By many a doubt were riven;

And forth 'mid friendship's sob and sigh

The glorious exile went to die.

Though well he knew what he must fear

From torture's horrid art,

His sorrowing kin that thronged him near
He calmly bade depart,

And pushed aside the anxious crowd
That followed with entreaties loud.

And so he left them all, like one
Who takes a holiday;

Whose clients' weary work is done,

And forthwith speeds away,
To exchange the city's toil and strife
For rustic joys and country life.

VI.

TO THE ROMANS.

Guiltless yourself, your father's crimes,
Roman, you long to after times

Are doomed to expiate;

Till in fit shrines you place your gods,

And cleanse their smoke-begrimed abodes, And temples reinstate.

You rule because the gods you fear :
The source are they of all things here,
'Tis they the event command:
The gods by Romans scorned of yore
Have poured a thousand evils o'er
Hesperia's luckless land.

Twice have the Parthian armies foiled
Our ill-advised attacks, and spoiled
Our soldiers in the strife;

Dacian and Ethiop, both have come

With fleet and bow to menace Rome,

With civil tumults rife.

The age has dared to violate,
Fruitful in crime, the marriage state,

And race and birth confound.
This was the first of all our woes,
'Tis from this source destruction flows,
And pain and death abound.

Not from such sires the heroes brave

Were born and bred, who stained the wave

Of old with Punic blood,

Who levelled low proud Pyrrhus' might,

And Syria's monarch put to flight,

And Hannibal withstood.

A hardy brood were they to toil,
They hewed the wood and dug the soil
At parents' stern behest,

When o'er the hills Sol's fading beam
Varied the shades, and loosed the team,
And brought the hour of rest.

O Time, what dost thou not debase!
Our grandsires were a nobler race
Than those they did beget,

And we ourselves, more prone to ill,
Succeeded, we whose offspring will
Be more pernicious yet.

VII.

TO ASTERIE.

Why weep, Asterie, for your swain,

Whom spring's first gales will bring again

Enriched by trade, a happy youth,

Gyges, renowned for constant truth?

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