I love Athens better than a bride,
Her laws are bloody and her children slaves;
Her sages slumber in empoisoned graves;
Her soil is sterile, barren are her seas;
Eden still blooms in the Hesperides,
Beyond the pillars of far Hercules!
Westward, amid the ocean's blandest smile,
Atlantis blossoms, a perennial Isle;
A vast Republic stretching far and wide,
Greater than Greece and Macedon beside!"

The vision fades. Across the mental screen
A mightier spirit stalks upon the scene;
His tread shakes empires ancient as the sun;
His voice resounds, and nations are undone;
War in his tone and battle in his eye,
The world in arms, a Roman dare defy!
Throned on the summit of the seven hills,
He bathes his gory heel in Tiber's rills;
Stretches his arms across a triple zone,
And dares be master of mankind, alone!
All peoples send their tribute to his store;
Wherever rivers glide or surges roar,
Or mountains rise or desert plains expand,
His minions sack and pillage every land.
But not alone for rapine and for war
The Roman eagle spreads his pinions far;
He bears a sceptre in his talons strong,
To guard the right, to rectify the wrong,
And carries high, in his imperial beak,
A shield armored to protect the weak.

Justice and law are dropping from his wing,
Equal alike for consul, serf or king;
Daggers for tyrants, for patriot-heroes fame,
Attend like menials on the Roman name!

Was Rome the Eden of our ancient state,
Just in her laws, in her dominion great,
Wise in her counsels, matchless in her worth,
Acknowledged great proconsul of the earth?

An eye prophetic that has read the leaves
The sibyls scattered from their loosened sheaves,
A bard that sang at Rome in all her pride,
Shall give response;--let Seneca decide!

"Beyond the rocks where Shetland's breakers roar,
And clothe in foam the wailing, ice-bound shore,
Within the bosom of a tranquil sea,
Where Earth has reared her _Ultima Thule_,
The gorgeous West conceals a golden clime,
The petted child, the paragon of Time!
In distant years, when Ocean's mountain wave
Shall rock a cradle, not upheave a grave,
When men shall walk the pathway of the brine,
With feet as safe as Terra watches mine,
Then shall the barriers of the Western Sea
Despised and broke