Tempore Georgii IIIi When Caesar Rome's reluctant spirit broke And bow'd her haughty neck beneath his yoke; When stern oppression ruled the blasted plain, With all her kindred furies in her train, "Oh wretched times!" desponding Cicero cry'd While Rome's best blood but swell'd her Tyber's tide. Yet generous Brutus struck one well aimed blow, And instant vengeance laid the Tyrant low. But when corruption tries her deeper art To poison, not to stab, each honest heart, When Virtue is so rooted from the ground That hardly can one generous Vice be found, And lust of gold in every sordid breast, Like Aaron's rod has swallowed up the rest, When sickly calms the nerveless land o'erspread, With treacherous smiles of partial plenty fed Then, then exclaim "Oh hapless Times indeed"; For deeper is the wound that does not bleed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 27 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN FRIENDSHIP [OR, THE TRUE FRIEND] by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AVIENUS: TO HIS FRIENDS by RUFUS FESTUS AVIENUS ZINNIAS by ANNA EMILIA BAGSTAD THE BEACHCOMBER by MILDRED DOSCH BANTA |