Village books

PHOCYL.

----We hope that the departed will rise again from the dust: after
which, like the gods, they will be immortal.

Now man awakes, and from his silent bed,
Where he has slept for ages, lifts his head;
Shakes off the slumber of ten thousand years,
And on the borders of new worlds appears.
Whate'er the bold, the rash, adventure cost,
In wide eternity I dare be lost.
The muse is wont in narrow bounds to sing,
To teach the swain, or celebrate the king.
I grasp the whole, no more to parts confin'd,
I lift my voice, and sing to humankind:
I sing to men and angels; angels join,
While such the theme, their sacred songs with mine.
Again the trumpet's intermitted sound
Rolls the wide circuit of creation round,
A universal concourse to prepare
Of all that ever breath'd the vital air:
In some wide field, which active whirlwinds sweep,
Drive cities, forests, mountains, to the deep,
To smooth and lengthen out th' unbounded space,
And spread an area for all human race.


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