When Philip's son that sepulchre survey'd, Where palsied time the stern Achilles laid: He view'd the pile with reverential awe, Whose frail contents had given nations law; Upheld the recreant Greeks with godlike might, And wrote in blood th' establishment of right. If a rude Pagan thus could step aside, To hail the dust once warm'd by human pride, How much should I regard this hallow'd spot, Where wealth the indigence of worth forgot; Where LYTTELTON with honour pass'd his days, And Bards bestrew'd the threshold with their bays: Where THOMSON led the motley hours along, And drew the Seasons in immortal song: This is the bank where POPE his heart explor'd, And wove a theme which BOLINGBROKE ador'd: This is the vernal avenue he trod, Imbibing thought to venerate his God: Each tinkling rill, each mount, each dale, each tree, Are sacred all, as Israel's ark, to me: Or Jubal's timbrel or the Delphic hall, Or the Palladium on the Trojan wall. In scenes like these by inspiration fed, Imbower'd at Tusculum the Roman read: Impell'd by love and hope I rove around, Yet dread to violate the classic ground; Or wound some flow'ret by my vagrant feet, Rais'd from a root that deck'd the muses seat. So pale, so panting, mov'd the steel-wrapt bands, Who drove the savage Turk from Syria's lands: And pierc'd with fearful zeal thro' Salem's gloom, To lay their trembling hands on JESUS' tomb.
