It grieves me to the soul To see how man submits to man’s control; How overpowered and shackled minds are led In vulgar tracks, and to submission bred. _Crabbe._ * * * * * You shall be as a father to my youth, My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear; And I will stoop and humble my intents To your well practised, wise directions. _Shakspeare._ * * * * * Romans now Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; But, wo the while! our fathers’ minds are dead, And we are governed with our mother’s spirits; Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. _Shakspeare._ * * * * * E’en liberty itself is bartered here. At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies, The needy sell it, and the rich man buys; A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves, Here wretches seek dishonourable graves, And, calmly bent, to servitude conform, Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm. _Goldsmith._ * * * * * Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride; From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind An easy compensation seem to find. Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed, The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade; Processions formed for piety and love, A mistress or a saint in every grove. By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child; Each nobler aim, repressed by long control, Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul; While low delights, succeeding fast behind, In happier meanness occupy the mind: As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway, Defaced by time and tottering in decay, There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed; And, wondering man could want the larger pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. _Goldsmith._ FIR.... _Time_. What does not fade? the tower, that long had stood The crush of thunder and the warring winds, Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time, Now hangs in doubtful ruins o’er its base, And flinty pyramids and walls of brass Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk; Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down. Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones, And tottering empires crush by their own weight. _Armstrong._ * * * * *