Arm'd on his Getick elephant might see!
But what's the event? O glory, how the itch
Of thy short wonders doth mankind bewitch!
He that but now all Italy and Spain
Had conquer'd o'er, is beaten out again;
And in the heart of Afric, and the sight
Of his own Carthage, forc'd to open flight.
Banish'd from thence, a fugitive he posts
To Syria first, then to Bithynia's coasts,
Both places by his sword secur'd, though he
In this distress must not acknowledg'd be;
Where once a general he triumphed, now
To show what Fortune can, he begs as low.
And thus that soul which through all nations hurl'd
Conquest and war, and did amaze the world,
Of all those glories robb'd, at his last breath,
Fortune would not vouchsafe a soldier's death.
For all that blood the field of Cannae boasts,
And sad Apulia fill'd with Roman ghosts,
No other end--freed from the pile and sword--
Than a poor ring would Fortune him afford.
Go now, ambitious man! new plots design,
March o'er the snowy Alps and Apennine;
That, after all, at best thou may'st but be
A pleasing story to posterity!
The Macedon one world could not contain,
We hear him of the narrow earth complain,
And sweat for room, as if Seriphus Isle
Or Gyara had held him in exile;
But Babylon this madness can allay,
And give the great man but his length of clay.
The highest thoughts and actions under heaven
Death only with the lowest dust lays even.
It is believed--if what Greece writes be true--
That Xerxes with his Persian fleet did hew
Their ways through mountains, that their sails full blown
Like clouds hung over Athos and did drown
The spacious continent, and by plain force
Betwixt the mount and it, made a divorce;
That seas exhausted were, and made firm land,
And Sestos joined unto Abydos strand;
That on their march his Medes but passing by
Drank thee, Scamander, and Melenus dry;
With whatsoe'er incredible design
Sostratus sings, inspir'd with pregnant wine.
But what's the end? He that the other day
Divided Hellespont, and forc'd his way
Through all her angry billows, that assign'd
New punishments unto the waves, and wind,
No sooner saw the Salaminian seas
But he was driven out by Themistocles,
And of that fleet--supposed to be so great,
That all mankind shar'd in the