Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/48

Has chilling force, and ev'ry rain offends;
For now the frame no more is girt with strength
Masculine, nor in lustiness of heart
Laughs at the winter-storm and summer-beam,475
Superior to their rage: enfeebling vice
Withers each nerve, and opens ev'ry pore
To painful feeling: flow'ry bow'rs they seek,
(As ether prompts, as the sick sense approves)
Or cool nymphean grots, or tepid baths;480
(Taught by the soft lonians) they along
The lawny vale, of ev'ry beauteous stone,
Pile in the roseat air with fond expense:
Thro' silver channels glide the vagrant waves,
And fall on silver beds crystalline down,485
Melodious murmuring; while Luxury
Over their naked limbs, with wanton hand,
Sheds roses, odours, sheds unheeded bane.
Swift is the flight of wealth; unnumber'd wants,
Brood of Voluptuousness, cry out aloud 490
Necessity, and seek the splendid bribe.
The citron board, the bowl emboss'd with gems,
And tender foliage wildly wreath'd around
Of seeming ivy, by that artful hand,
Corinthian Thericles; whate'er is known 495
Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs,
Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food,
And flavour'd Chian wines, with incense fum'd,
To slake Patrician thirst: for these their rights
In the vile streets they prostitute to sale; 500
Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws,
Their native glorious freedom. Is there none,
Is there no villain, that will bind the neck
Stretch'd to the yoke? They come; the market throngs.
But who has most by fraud or force amass'd? 505