Page:The Pharsalia of Lucan; (IA cu31924026485809).pdf/30
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PHARSALIA
Book I
By envious fate's decreesAbide not long the mightiest lords of earth; 80Beneath too heavy a burden great the fall.Thus Rome o'ergrew her strength. So when that hour,The last in all the centuries, shall soundThe world's disruption, all things shall revertTo that primæval chaos, stars on starsShall crash; and fiery meteors from the skyPlunge in the ocean. Earth shall then no moreFront with her bulwark the encroaching sea:The moon, indignant at her path oblique,Shall drive her chariot 'gainst her brother Sun 90And claim the day for hers; and discord hugeShall rend the spheres asunder. On themselvesGreat powers are dashed: such bounds the gods have placedUpon the prosperous; nor doth Fortune lendTo any nations, so that they may strikeThe sovereign power that rules the earth and sea,The weapons of her envy. Triple reignAnd baleful compact for divided power—Ne'er without peril separate before—Made Rome their victim. Oh! Ambition blind, 100That stirred the leaders so to join their strengthIn peace that ended ill, their prize the world!For while the Sea on Earth and Earth on AirLean for support: while Titan runs his course,And night with day divides an equal sphere,No king shall brook his fellow, nor shall powerEndure a rival. Search no foreign lands:These walls are proof that in their infant daysA hamlet, not the world, was prize enoughTo cause the shedding of a brother's blood. 110Concord, on discord based, brief time endured,