their trace be found.
Critics I saw, that other names deface,
And fix their own, with labour, in their place:
Their own, like others, soon their place resigned,
Or disappeared, and left the first behind. 40
Nor was the work impaired by storms alone,[17]
But felt th' approaches of too warm a sun;
For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays
Not more by envy than excess of praise.[18]
Yet part no injuries of heav'n could feel,[19] 45
Like crystal faithful to the graving steel:
The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade,
Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade.
Their names inscribed unnumbered ages past
From time's first birth, with time itself shall last; 50
These ever new, nor subject to decays,
Spread, and grow brighter with the length of days.
So Zembla's rocks (the beauteous work of frost)[20]
Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast;
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away, 55
And on th' impassive ice the lightnings play;
Eternal snows the growing mass supply,
Till the bright mountains prop th' incumbent sky[21]:
As Atlas fixed, each hoary pile appears,[22]
The gathered winter of a thousand years.[23] 60
On this foundation Fame's high temple stands;
Stupendous pile! not reared by mortal hands.[24]
Whate'er proud Rome or artful Greece beheld,
Or elder Babylon, its frame excelled.
Four faces had the dome,[25] and ev'ry face 65
Of various structure, but of equal grace:
Four brazen gates, on columns lifted high,[26]
Salute the diff'rent quarters of the sky.[27]
Here fabled chiefs in darker ages born,
Or worthies old, whom arms or arts adorn,[28] 70
Who cities raised, or tamed a monstrous race,
The walls in venerable order grace.[29]
Heroes in animated marble frown,[30]
And legislators seem to think in stone.
Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appeared, 75
On Doric pillars of white marble reared,[31]
Crowned with an architrave of antique mold,
And sculpture rising on the roughened gold,[32]
In shaggy spoils here Theseus was beheld,[33]
And Perseus dreadful with Minerva's shield:[34] 80
There great Alcides stooping