English

BOOK IV.

I N one dark age, beneath a single hand,
Thus rose an empire in the savage land.
Her golden seats, with following years, increase,
Her growing nations spread the walks of peace,
Her sacred rites display the purest plan,
That e'er adorn'd the unguided mind of man.
Yet all the pomp, the extended climes unfold,
The fields of verdure and the towers of gold,
Those works of peace, and sovereign scenes of state,
In short-lived glory, hasten to their fate.

BOOK II.

High o'er the changing scene, as thus he gazed,
The indulgent Power his arm sublimely raised;
When round the realms superior lustre flew,
And call'd new wonders to the hero's view.
He saw, at once, as far as eye could rove,
Like scattering herds, the swarthy people move,
In tribes innumerable; all the waste,
Beneath their steps, a varying shadow cast.
As airy shapes, beneath the moon's pale eye,
When broken clouds sail o'er the curtain'd sky,

BOOK I.

Long had the Sage, the first who dared to brave
The unknown dangers of the western wave,
Who taught mankind where future empires lay
In these fair confines of descending day,
With cares o'erwhelm'd, in life's distressing gloom,
Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb;
While kings and nations, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his toils and triumph'd o'er his fame,
And gave the chies, from promised empire hurl'd,
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.

What mean these dreams, and hideous forms that rise
Night after night, tormenting to my eyes —
No real foes these horrid shapes can be,
But thrice as much they vex and torture me.

How cursed is he, — how doubly cursed am I —
Who lives in pain, and yet who dares not die;
To him no joy this world of Nature brings,
In vain the wild rose blooms, the daisy springs.
Is this a prelude to some new disgrace,
Some baleful omen to my name and race! —
It may be so — ere mighty Cesar died

Across the sea my country, my America,
Girt with steel, hard-glittering with power,
As a champion, with great voice trumpeting
High words, " For Liberty ... Democracy ... "

Deep within me something stirs, answers —
(My country, my America!)
As if alone in the high and empty night
She called me — my lost one, my first lover
I love no more, love no more, no more ...
The cloudy shadow of old tenderness,
Illusions of beautiful madness — many deaths
And easy immortality ...

the circumstances of Archy's first appearance are narrated in the following extract from the Sun Dial column of the New York Sun .
Dobbs Ferry possesses a rat which slips out of his lair at night and runs a typewriting machine in a garage. Unfortunately, he has always been interrupted by the watchman before he could produce a complete story.

Now from the finish'd games the Grecian band
Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand:
All stretch'd at ease the genial banquet share,
And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care.
Not so Achilles : He, to grief resign'd,
His friend's dear image present to his mind,
Takes his sad couch, more unobserv'd to weep,
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep.
Restless he roll'd around his weary bed,
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed:
The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind,

Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train
Thro' the sad city mourn'd her hero slain.
The body soil'd with dust, and black with gore,
Lyes on broad Hêllespont 's resounding shore:
The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand,
All, but the martial Myrmidonian band:
These yet assembled great Achilles holds,
And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds.
Not yet (my brave companions of the war)
Release your smoaking coursers from the car;
But, with his chariot each in order led,

Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panick fear,
The herded Ilians rush like driven deer;
There safe, they wipe the briny drops away,
And drown in bowls the labours of the day.
Close to the walls advancing o'er the fields,
Beneath one roof of well-compacted shields
March, bending on, the Greeks embodied pow'rs,
Far-stretching in the shade of Trojan tow'rs.
Great Hector singly stay'd; chain'd down by fate,
There fixt he stood before the Scaean gate;
Still his bold arms determin'd to employ,

And now to Xanthus' gliding stream they drove,
Xanthus , immortal progeny of Jove .
The river here divides the flying train.
Part to the town fly diverse o'er the plain,
Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight,
Now chas'd, and trembling in ignoble flight:
(These with a gather'd mist Saturnia shrouds,
And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds)
Part plunge into the stream: Old Xanthus roars,
The flashing billows beat the whiten'd shores:
With cries promiscuous all the banks resound,