Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/22

Thro' him the god their panting souls inspires,
Swells every breast, and warms with all his fires.
Blest were the poets with the hallow'd rage,
Train'd up in that, and the succeeding age:
As to his time each poet nearer drew,
His spreading fame in just proportion grew.
By like degrees the next degen'rate race
Sunk from the height of honour to disgrace.
And now the fame of Greece extinguisht lies,
Her ancient language with her glory dies.
Her banisht princes mourn their ravisht crowns,
Driv'n from their old hereditary thrones;
Her drooping natives rove o'er worlds unknown,
And weep their woes in regions not their own;
She feels thro' all her states the dreadful blow,
And mourns the fury of a barb'rous foe.

But when our bards brought o'er th' Aonian maids
From their own Helicon to Tyber's shades;
When first they settled on Hesperia's plains,
Their numbers ran in rough unpolisht strains.