Rent and divided, to your empire’s hurl’d. 
    She scarce had spoke; e’er from a cloud there flyes
    A blasting flame, that bursting shook the skyes;
    At Jove’s avenging thunder, to his hell,
    From the clos’d earth, affrighted Pluto fell. 
    When soon the angry gods their omens show,
    That bode destruction and approaching woe: 
    Astonishment surpriz’d the darkned sun,
    As if the war already were begun;
    Approaching ills the conscious Cynthia knew,
    And blushing, from impiety withdrew. 
    With hideous noise the falling mountains cleave;
    And streams repulst their usual courses leave. 
    Ingaging armies in the clouds appear,
    And trumpets raising Mars himself to war. 
    Now AEtna’s flames with an usual roar
    Vomit huge bolts of thunder in the air,
    Amidst the tombs and bones without their urns,
    Portending spirits send up dismal groans: 
    A comet’s seen with stars unknown before,
    And Jove descending in a bloody show’r: 
    The god these wonders did in short unfold,
    Caesar their ills no longer shou’d with-hold. 
    Impatient of revenge, quit Gallick jars,
    And draw his conquering sword for civil wars. 
    In cloudy Alps, where the divided rock
    To cunning Grecians did its nerves unlock,
    Altars devoted to Alcides smoke. 
    The temple with eternal ice is crown’d,
    Whose milky top so far in clouds is drown’d;
    You’d think its shoulders in the heavens bound
    Not the warm rays of a meridian sun,
    Or the hot southern winds can melt it down. 
    So fixt with ice and snows it did appear,
    That its aspiring top the globe might bear. 
    Here conquering Caesar leads his joyful bands,
    And on the proudest cliff consid’ring stands. 
    The distant plains of Italy surveys,
    And, hands and voice to heaven directed, says
    Almighty Jove and you, Saturnia, found,
    Safe by my arms, oft with my triumph’s crown’d. 
    Witness these arms unwillingly I wear,
    Unwillingly I come to wage this war,
    Compell’d by injuries too great to bear. 
    Banisht my country, while I make the flood,
    That laves the Rhine, run purple all with blood. 
    While the Gauls, ripe our Rome to re-invade,
    I force to skulk behind their Alps afraid: 
    By conquering my banishment’s secur’d. 
    Are sixty triumphs not to be endur’d? 
    A German conquest reckon’d such a fault? 
    By whom is glory such a monster thought? 
    Or who the vile supporters of this war? 
    A foreign spawn, a mobb in arms appear,
    At once Rome’s scandal, and at once her care. 
    No slavish soul shall bind this arm with chains,
    And unreveng’d triumph it o’re the plains. 
    Bold with success still to new conquests lead,
    Come, my companions, thus my cause I’le plead,