Unhappy _Athens_! it is true, thou wert The proudest work of Nature and of Art: Learning and strength did thee compose, As soul and body us: But yet thou onely thence art made A nobler prey for Fates t’ invade. Those mighty numbers that within thee breath, Do onely serve to make a fatter feast for Death. Death in the most frequented places lives, Most tribute from the croud receives; And though it bears a sigh, and seems to own A rustick life alone: It loves no Wilderness, No scattred Villages, But mighty populous Palaces, The throng, the tumult, and the town; What strange, unheard-of Conqueror is this, Which by the forces that resist it doth increase! When other Conquerors are Oblig’d to make a slower war, Nay sometimes for themselves may fear, And must proceed with watchful care, When thicker troops of enemies appear; This stronger still, and more successeful grows, Down sooner all before it throws, If greater multitudes of men do it oppose. VIII. The Tyrant first the haven did subdue, Lately the _Athenians_ (it knew) Themselves by wooden walls did save, And therefore first to them th’ infection gave, Least they new succour thence receive. Cruel _Pyræus_! now thou hast undone, The honour thou before hadst wone: Not all thy Merchandize, Thy wealth, thy treasuries, Which from all Coasts thy Fleet supplies, Can to atone this crime suffice. Next o’re the upper Town it spread, With mad and undiscerned speed; In every corner, every street, Without a guide did sets its feet, And too familiar every house did greet. Unhappy _Greece_ of _Greece_! great _Theseus_ now Did thee a mortal injury do, When first in walls he did thee close, When first he did thy Citizens reduce, Houses and Government, and Lawes to use. It had been better if thy people still Dispersed in some field, or hill, Though Salvage, and undisciplin’d did dwell, Though barbarous, untame, and rude, Than by their numbers thus to be subdu’d; To be by their own swarms anoid, And to be civilized onely to be destroid. IX.