This mighty scene I next presume to draw:
Attend, great Anna, with religious awe.
Expect not here the known successful arts
To win attention, and command our hearts:
Fiction, be far away; let no machine
Descending here, no fabled god, be seen;
Behold the God of gods indeed descend,
And worlds unnumber'd his approach attend!
Lo! the wide theatre, whose ample space
Must entertain the whole of human race,
At heaven's all-powerful edict is prepar'd,
And fenc'd around with an immortal guard.
Tribes, provinces, dominions, worlds, o'erflow
The mighty plain, and deluge all below:
And every age, and nation, pours along,
Nimrod and Bourbon mingle in the throng:
Adam salutes his youngest son; no sign,
Of all those ages, which their births disjoin.
How empty learning, and how vain is art,
But as it mends the life, and guides the heart!
What volumes have been swell'd, what time been spent,
To fix a hero's birth-day, or descent!
What joy must it now yield, what rapture raise,
To see the glorious race of ancient days!
To greet those worthies who perhaps have stood
Illustrious on record before the flood!
Alas! a nearer care your soul demands,
Caesar unnoted in your presence stands.
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