The bloody murder, or the yelling ghost; Or dismal ballads, sung to crowds of old, Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold. Yet to the unhonoured dead be Satire just; Some flowers 'smell sweet and blossom in their dust'. 'Tis thus even Shirley boasts a golden line, And Lovelace strikes, by fits, a note divine. The unequal gleams like midnight-lightnings play, And deepened gloom succeeds, in place of day. But human bliss still meets some envious storm; He droops to view his Paynter's mangled form: Presumptuous grief, while pensive Taste repines O'er the frail relics of her Attic shrines! O for that power, for which magicians vie, To look through earth, and secret hoards descry! I'd spurn such gems as Marinel beheld, And all the wealth Aladdin's cavern held, Might I divine in what mysterious gloom The rolls of sacred bards have found their tomb: Beneath what mouldering tower, or waste champaign, Is hid Menander, sweetest of the train: Where rests Antimachus' forgotten lyre, Where gentle Sappho's still seductive fire; Or he, whom chief the laughing Muses own, Yet skilled with softest accents to bemoan Sweet Philomel in strains so like her own. The menial train has proved the scourge of wit, Even Omar burnt less Science than the spit. Earthquakes and wars remit their deadly rage, But every feast demands some fated page. Ye Towers of Julius, ye alone remain Of all the piles that saw our nation's stain, When Harry's sway oppressed the groaning realm, And Lust and Rapine seized the wavering helm. Then ruffian-hands defaced the sacred fanes, Their saintly statues and their storied panes; Then from the chest, with ancient art embossed, The penman's pious scrolls were rudely tossed; Then richest manuscripts, profusely spread, The brawny churls' devouring oven fed: And thence collectors date the heavenly ire That wrapt Augusta's domes in sheets of fire.