"THE Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity.

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By this shameful abdication he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an Exile, till

99

GIEBON's Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p.

VOL. IV.-F

220.

So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones
And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

II.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,

Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestion'd, power to save,-
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipp'd thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

III.

Thanks for that lesson - it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

All quell'd! — Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

V.

The Desolator desolate !

The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate

A Suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope

That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?

His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

VII.

The Roman, (3) when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home.-

He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

(1)" Certaminis gaudia," the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus.

(2) Milo. (3) Sylla.