Those bold insurancers of deathless fame, Supply their little feeble aids in vain. The tapering pyramid, the Egyptian's pride, 190 And wonder of the world; whose spiky top Has wounded the thick cloud, and long outlived The angry shaking of the winter's storm; Yet spent at last by the injuries of heaven, Shatter'd with age and furrow'd o'er with years, The mystic cone, with hieroglyphics crusted, At once gives way. Oh, lamentable sight! The labour of whole ages tumbles down, A hideous and mis-shapen length of ruins. Sepulchral columns wrestle, but in vain, 200 With all-subduing Time: his cankering hand With calm deliberate malice wasteth them: Worn on the edge of days, the brass consumes, The busto moulders, and the deep-cut marble, Unsteady to the steel, gives up its charge. Ambition, half convicted of her folly, Hangs down the head, and reddens at the tale. Here, all the mighty troublers of the earth, Who swam to sovereign rule through seas of blood; The oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains, 210 Who ravaged kingdoms, and laid empires waste, And in a cruel wantonness of power Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up To want the rest; now, like a storm that's spent, Lie hush'd, and meanly sneak behind the covert. Vain thought! to hide them from the general scorn That haunts and dogs them like an injured ghost Implacable. Here, too, the petty tyrant, Whose scant domains geographer ne'er noticed, And, well for neighbouring grounds, of arm as short; 220 Who fix'd his iron talons on the poor, And gripp'd them like some lordly beast of prey; Deaf to the forceful cries of gnawing hunger, And piteous, plaintive voice of misery (As if a slave was not a shred of nature, Of the same common nature with his lord); Now tame and humble, like a child that's whipp'd, Shakes hands with dust, and calls the worm his kinsman; Nor pleads his rank and birthright: Under ground Precedency's a jest; vassal and lord, 230 Grossly familiar, side by side consume. When self-esteem, or others' adulation, Would cunningly persuade us we are something Above the common level of our kind, The Grave gainsays the smooth-complexion'd flattery, And with blunt truth acquaints us what we are. Beauty,--thou pretty plaything, dear deceit! That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart, And gives it a new pulse, unknown before, The Grave discredits thee: thy charms expunged, 240 Thy roses faded, and thy lilies soil'd, What hast thou more to boast of? Will thy lovers Flock round thee now, to gaze and do thee homage? Methinks I see thee with thy head low laid, Whilst, surfeited upon thy damask cheek, The high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll'd, Riots unscared. For this, was all thy caution? For this, thy painful labours at thy glass? To improve those charms and keep them in repair,