No verdant autumn crowns the fruitful earth;
    No blooming woods with vernal songs resound,
    Nothing but black confusion all around,
    There lonely rocks in dismal quiet mourn,
    Which aged cypress dreadfully adorn. 
    Here Pluto rais’d his head, and through a cloud
    Of fire and smoke, in this prophetick mood,
    To giddy fortune spoke,—­
    All ruling Power,
    You love all change, and quit it soon for more;
    You never like what too securely stands;
    Does Rome not tire your faint supporting hands? 
    How can you longer bear the sinking frame,
    The Roman youth now hate the Roman name. 
    See all around luxuriant trophies lye,
    And their encreasing wealth new ills supply. 
    Golden aspiring piles here heav’n invade,
    There on the sea encroaching bounds are made. 
    Where fields contriving as from waters sprung,
    Inverted nature’s injur’d laws they wrong. 
    So deep the caverns in the earth some make,
    They threat my empire, and my regions shake;
    While to low quarries others sink for stone;
    And hollow rocks beneath their fury groan. 
    Proud with the hopes to see another day,
    M’infernal subjects ’gin to disobey: 
    Fortune be kind, still I’le their fure dare,
    Turn all your smiles, and stir up Rome to war,
    And a new colony of souls prepare. 
    Our sooty lips no blood have taste,
    With thirst Tisiphone’s dry throat does wast. 
    Since Sylla’s sword let out the purple flood,
    And guilty earth grew fruitful from the blood. 
    The black grim god did thus to Fortune say,
    Reaching her hand, the yielding earth gave way
    The fickle goddess, thus returning, said,
    Father, by all beneath this earth obey’d,
    If dangerous truths may be with safety told,
    My thoughts with yours a just proportion hold: 
    No less a rage this willing breast inspires,
    Nor am I prest with less inflam’d desires;
    I hate the blessings that to Rome I lent,
    And of my bounty, now abus’d, repent: 
    Thus the proud height of Rome’s aspiring wall,
    By the same dreadful god ’twas rais’d, shall fall. 
    Their blood I’ll offer as a sacrifice,
    T’ appease the ghost of their departed vice. 
    I already see Pharsalian armies slain,
    The funeral piles of Thessaly and Spain: 
    Egypt and Libya’s groans methinks I hear,
    The dismal sound of arms now strikes my ear,
    An Actian sea-fight, and retreating fear. 
    Make wide the entrance of your thirsty soil,
    New spirits must i’ th’ mighty harvest toil;
    Charon’s too narrow boat can ne’re convey,
    Scarce a whole fleet will waft the souls away;
    Pale furies be with the vast ruin crown’d,
    And fill’d with blood, remangle every wound. 
    The universal fabrick of the world,