my cherish’d sight to clear
    There march’d in rank the dames of ancient days,
    Antiope, renown’d for martial praise;
    Orithya near, in glittering armour shone,
    And fair Hippolyta that wept her son;
    The sisters whom Alcides met of yore
    In arms on Thermodon’s distinguish’d shore;
    When he and Theseus foil’d the warlike pair,
    By force compell’d the nuptial rite to share. 
    The widow’d queen, who seem’d with tranquil smile
    To view her son upon the funeral pile;
    But brooding vengeance rankled deep within,
    So Cyrus fell within the fatal gin: 
    Misconduct, which from age to age convey’d,
    O’er her long glories cast a funeral shade. 
    I saw the Amazon whom Ilion mourn’d,
    And her for whom the flames of discord burn’d,
    Betwixt the Trojan and Rutulian train
    When her affianced lover press’d the plain;
    And her, that with dishevell’d tresses flew,
    Half-arm’d, half-clad, her rebels to subdue. 
    Her partner too in lawless love I spied,
    A Roman harlot, an incestuous bride. 
    But Tadmor’s queen, with nobler fires inflamed,
    The pristine glory of the sex reclaim’d,
    Who in the spring of life, in beauty’s bloom,
    Her heart devoted to her husband’s tomb;
    True to his dust, aspiring to the crown
    Of virtue, in such years but seldom known: 
    With temper’d mail she hid her snowy breast,
    And with Bellona’s helm and nodding crest
    Despising Cupid’s lore, her charms conceal’d,
    And led the foes of Latium to the field. 
    The shock at ancient Rome was felt afar,
    And Tyber trembled at the distant war
    Of foes she held in scorn:  but soon she found
    That Mars his native tribes with conquest crown’d
    And by her haughty foes in triumph led,
    The last warm tears of indignation shed. 
    O fair Bethulian! can my vagrant song
    O’erpass thy virtues in the nameless throng,
    When he that sought to lure thee to thy shame
    Paid with his sever’d head his frantic flame? 
    Can Ninus be forgot, whose ancient name
    Begins the long roll of imperial fame? 
    And he whose pride, by Heaven’s imperial doom,
    Reduced among the grazing herd to roam? 
    Belus, who first beheld the nations sway
    To idols, from the Heaven-directed way,
    Though he was blameless?  Where does he reside
    Who first the dangerous art of magic tried? 
    O Crassus! much I mourn the baleful star
    That o’er Euphrates led the storm of war. 
    Thy troops, by Parthian snares encircled round,
    Mark’d with Hesperia’s shame the bloody ground;
    And Mithridates, Rome’s incessant foe,
    Who fled through burning plains and tracts of snow
    Their fell pursuit.  But now, the parting strain
    Must pass, with slight survey, the coming train: