Draw back, draw back thy sword, O Fate! Lest thou repent when ’tis too late, Lest by thy making now so great a waste, By spending all Man-kind upon one feast, Thou sterve thy self at last: What men wilt thou reserve in store, Whom in the time to come thou mayst devour, When thou shalt have destroyed all before. But if thou wilt not yet give o’re, If yet thy greedie Stomach calls for more, If more remain whom thou must kill, And if thy jawes are craving still, Carry thy fury to the _Scythian_ coasts, The Northern wildness, and eternal frosts! Against those barbrous crouds thy arrows whet, Where Arts and Laws are strangers yet; Where thou may’st kill, and yet the loss will not be great, There rage, there spread, and there infect the Air, Murder whole towns and families there, Thy worst against those Savage nations dare, Those whom Man-kind can spare, Those whom man-kind it self doth fear; Amidst that dreadful night, and fatal cold, There thou may’st walk unseen, and bold, There let thy Flames their Empire hold. Unto the farthest Seas, and Natures ends, Where never Summer Sun its beams extends, Carry thy plagues, thy pains, thy heats; Thy raging fires, thy tortering sweats, Where never ray, or heat did come, They will rejoyce at such a doom, They’l bless thy Pestilential fire, Though by it they expire, They’l thank the very Flames with which they do consume. XXV.