The Monumental Arch, the Parian Dome  

Majestick Ruins of Imperial Rome!

How shall the Muse your happy labours hail,

Where words to raise the fair Idea fail?

Let your own-speaking-paint your praises show

Your knowledge in Poetick colours glow!

Too delicate you check my friendship's fires,

And awe the Fancy that your worth inspires;

My strength unequall to the task, I know;

Cold dawns the thought, languid the Numbers flow:

The fleeting Image cheats my lab'ring mind,

And feebly shews what boldly was design'd;

As when the first faint lines your canvas stain,

And Nature Strugles thro' the piece in vain;

From the rude Strokes imperfectly we trace 

The Mimick life, scetch'd o'er the future face.

See! Time rolls backward with his Pinions bound,

And Fate obsequious cleaves the teeming ground;

The Grave gives up its Dead, reviv'd they stand

A new Creation from thy forming hand!

Conflicting Chiefs in artfull fight engage,

And wond'ring Nature feels fictitious rage;

There, ’midst plum'd Warriours stain'd with honest blood 

Young Ammon plunges in the Grannick flood;

Here like a regent Angel in his star,

The Persian drives his Diamond-glowing Car.

Lo! where aloft the foamy coursers rear;

In act to Neigh, and paw the suff'ring Air.

The purpl'd water we behold below,

Amaz'd to find the stream forgett to flow.

Thro' Groups of Men Just Attitudes we spy,

And each contracted figure Chains the Eye

Vary'd ---




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