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The rush of those firm cohorts, when the earth,
Trampled and trembling,—and the echoing hills
Attested the dire onset?—With deep groans
A mighty earthquake rent the rocks, and made
Cities an heap,—yet smote not their mad ear
Who mid the clash of sword and buckler fought,
With hatred horrible.—
                                    —Man's passions mock
The strife of nature.—Her worst deluge spared
The righteous household.—The storm-stricken main
In wrath remembereth mercy,—wrecks not all
That to its bosom cling.—
                                         —Vesuvius saves
Even in the height of his mad victory,
The little Hermitage that timid asks
Mercy of him, and bids his molten fires
Ripen to richer zest its vineyards green.—
—But the blind haste, and headlong rage of war,
What know they of compassion?—Bid him speak,
Who in thy dark and watery deep doth rest,—
The stern Flaminius,—he who saw defeat
The eagle standard quell, and fled to hide
His burning shame with thee, holding the frown
And grasp of pitiless Death, less terrible
Than Rome's upbraiding eye.—
                                                 In earth he dream'd
To strike a root eternal, and to hang
Unfading garlands on the fickle sky
Of stormy honour.—Even then was spread
Thy bulrush pall for him,—and from their cells
Thy scaly monsters throng'd at his approach
To gaze upon him.—