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The best concerted schemes men lay for fame
Die fast away; only themselves die faster.
The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurell'd bard,
These bold insurancers of deathless fame,
Supply their little feeble aids in vain.

The tap'ring pyramid, th' Egyptian's pride,
And wonder of the world! whose spiky top
Has wounded the thick cloud, and long out-

liv'd

The angry shaking of the winter's storm;

Yet, spent at last by th' injuries of Heaven,
Shatter'd with and furrow'd o'er with years,

age,

The mystic cone, with hieroglyphics crusted,

At once gives way.
The labour of whole

O lamentable sight!

ages lumbers down,

A hideous and mis-shapen length of ruins!
Sepulchral columns wrestle but in vain

With all-subduing Time: her cank'ring hand
With calm deliberate malice wasteth them.
Worn on the edge of days, the brass consumes,
The busto moulders, and the deep cut marble,
Unsteady to the steel, gives up it's charge!
Ambition, half convicted of her folly,
Hangs down the head, and reddens at the tale!

Here all the mighty troublers of the earth, Who swam to sov'reign rule through seas of blood;

Th' oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains,
Who ravag'd kingdoms, and laid empires waste,
And in a cruel wantonness of power

Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up
To want the rest; now, like a storm that's spent,
Lie hush'd, and meanly sneak behind the covert.
Vain thought! to hide them from the general

scorn,

That haunts and dogs them like an injur'd ghost Implacable! Here too the petty tyrant,

Whose scant domains geographer ne'er notic'd, And, well for neighb'ring grounds, of arm as short;

Who fix'd his iron talons on the poor,

And grip'd them like some lordly beast of prey,
Deaf to the forceful cries of gnawing hunger,
And piteous plaintive voice of misery
(As if a slave were not a shred of nature,

Of the same common nature with his lord);

Now tame and humble, like a child that's whipp'd,

Shakes hands with dust, and calls the worm his

kinsman !

Nor pleads his rank and birthright. Under ground
Precedency's a jest; vassal and lord,
Grossly familiar, side by side consume!

When self-esteem, or other's adulation,

Would cunningly persuade us we were something

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The Counseller King. Warrier Mother & Child, in the Toml

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