O manners, ruin, and the people's shame!
He suffer'd not alone, the Roman name,
Virtue and honour to their period came.
Thus wretched Rome does her own ruin share,
At once the merchant, and at once the ware,
All lands are mortgag'd, and all persons bound,
And in the use the principal is drown'd.
Thus debt's a feaver, and like that disease,
Bred in our bowels, by unfelt degrees
Will through our thirsty vitals ev'ry member seize
Wild tumults now to arms for succour call,
(For what may dare and never fear a fall.)
Wasted by riot, wealth's a putrid sore,
That only wounds can its lost strength restore.
What rules of reason, or soft gentle ways,
Rome from this lethargy of vice can raise?
Where such mild arts can no impression make,
War, tumult, noise and fury must awake.
Fortune one age with three great chiefs supply'd,
Who different ways, by the sword that rais'd 'em dy'd;
Crassus's blood, Asia; Africk, Pompey's shed;
In thankless Rome, the murder'd C?¦sar bled.
Thus as one soil alone too narrow were,
Their glorious dust, and great remains to bear,
O're all the earth their scatter'd ruin lyes;
Such honours to the mighty dead arise.
'Twixt Naples and Puteoli there is,
Deep in the gaping earth, a dark abys,
Where runs the raging black Cocytus stream,
That from its waters sends a sulphurous stream,
Which spreads its fury round the blasted green,
O're all the fatal compass of its breath,
No verdant autumn crowns the fruitful earth;
No blooming woods with vernal songs resound,
Nothing but black confusion all around,
There lonely rocks in dismal quiet mourn,
Which aged cypress dreadfully adorn.
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