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within her gates The dregs of all the world. That none might wage A civil war again, thus deeply drank Pharsalia's fight the life-blood of her sons. Dark in the calendar of Rome for aye, The days when Allia and Cannae fell: And shall Pharsalus' morn, darkest of all, Stand on the page unmarked? Alas, the fates! Not plague nor pestilence nor famine's rage, Not cities given to the flames, nor towns Trembling at shock of earthquake shall weigh down Such heroes lost, when Fortune's ruthless hand Lops at one blow the gift of centuries, Leaders and men embattled. How great art thou, Rome, in thy fall! Stretched to the widest bounds War upon war laid nations at thy feet Till flaming Titan nigh to either pole Beheld thine empire; and the furthest east Was almost thine, till day and night and sky For thee revolved, and all the stars could see Throughout their course was Roman. But the fates In one dread day of slaughter and despair Turned back the centuries and spoke thy doom. And now the Indian fears the axe no more Once emblem of thy power, now no more The girded Consul curbs the Getan horde, Or in Sarmatian furrows guides the share: (17) Still Parthia boasts her triumphs unavenged: Foul is the public life; and Freedom, fled To furthest Earth beyond the Tigris' stream, And Rhine's broad river, wandering at her will 'Mid Teuton hordes and Scythian, though by sword Sought, yet returns not. Would that from the day When Romulus, aided by the vulture's flight, Ill-omened, raised within that hateful grove Rome's earliest walls, down to the crimsoned field In dire Thessalia fought, she ne'er had known Italia's peoples! Did the Bruti strike In vain for liberty? Why laws and rights Sanctioned by all the annals designate With consular titles? Happier far the Medes And blest Arabia, and the Eastern lands Held by a kindlier fate in despot rule! That nation serves the worst which serves with shame. No guardian gods watch over us from heaven: Jove (18) is no king; let ages whirl along In blind confusion: from his throne supreme Shall he behold such carnage and restrain His thunderbolts? On Mimas shall he hurl His fires, on Rhodope and Oeta's woods Unmeriting such chastisement, and leave This life to Cassius' hand? On Argos fell At grim Thyestes' feast (19) untimely night By him thus hastened; shall Thessalia's land Receive full daylight, wielding kindred swords In fathers' hands and brothers'? Careless of men
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