Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/42

Of human benefit: more late the rest;
At various times their turrets chanc'd to rise,
When impious Tyranny vouchsaf'd to smile. 265
Behold by Tiber's flood, where modern Rome
Couches beneath the ruins; there of old
With arms and trophies gleam'd the Field of Mars:
There to their daily sports the noble youth
Rush'd emulous, to fling the pointed lance, 270
To vault the steed, or with the kindling wheel
In dusty whirlwinds sweep the trembling goal;
Or, wrestling, cope, with adverse swelling breasts,
Strong grappling arms, close heads, and distant feet;
Or clash the lifted gauntlets: there they form'd 275
Their ardent virtues: in the bossy piles,
The proud triumphal arches, all their wars,
Their conquests, honours, in the sculptures live.
And see from ev'ry gate those ancient roads,
With tombs high verg'd, the solemn paths of Fame! 280
Deserve they not regard? o'er whose broad flints
Such crowds have roll'd, so many storms of war,
So many pomps, so many wond'ring realms:
Yet still thro' mountains pierc'd, o'er vallies rais'd,
In even state to distant seas around 285
They stretch their pavements. Lo! the fane of Peace
Built by that prince who to the trust of pow'r
Was honest, the delight of human-kind.
Three nodding aisles remain, the rest an heap
Of sand and weeds; her shrines, her radiant roof 290
And columns proud, that from her spacious floor,
As from a shining sea, majestic rose
An hundred foot aloft, like stately beech
Around the brim of Dion's glassy lake,
Charming the mimic painter: on the walls 295
Hung Salem's sacred spoils; the golden board
And golden trumpets, now conceal'd, entomb'd