Читать книгу A Satire Anthology - Wells Carolyn - Страница 5

PRODUCE the urn that Hannibal contains,

And weigh the mighty dust that yet remains.

And this is all? Yet this was once the bold,

The aspiring chief, whom Attic could not hold.

Afric, outstretched from where the Atlantic roars

To Nilus; from the Line to Libya’s shores.

Spain conquered, o’er the Pyrenees he bounds.

Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,

Her Alps and snows. O’er these with torrent force

He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.

Yet thundering on, “Think nothing done,” he cries,

“Till o’er Rome’s prostrate walls I lead my powers,

And plant my standard on her hated towers!”

Big words? But view his figure, view his face!

Ah, for some master hand the lines to trace,

As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increased,

The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast!

But what ensued? Illusive glory, say:

Subdued on Zama’s memorable day,

He flies in exile to a petty state,

With headlong haste, and at a despot’s gate

Sits, mighty suppliant – of his life in doubt,

Till the Bithynian’s morning nap be out.

Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled,

Shall quell the man whose frowns alarmed the world.

The vengeance due to Cannæ’s fatal field,

And floods of human gore, a ring shall yield!

Go, madman, go! at toil and danger mock,

Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,

To please the rhetoricians, and become

A declamation for the boys of Rome.