University of Virginia Library

EXTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS ON SEEING A BULL SLAIN IN THE COUNTRY.

The sottish clown who never knew a charm
Beyond the prowess of his nervous arm,
Proud of his might, with self-importance full,
Or climbs the spire, or fights the mad'ning bull;
The love of praise, impatient of controul,
O'erflows the scanty limits of his soul;
In uncouth jargon, turbulently loud,
He bawls his triumphs to the wond'ring crowd:
This well-strung arm dispens'd the deadly blow,
Fell'd the proud bull and sunk his glories low:
Not thoughts more tow'ring fill'd Pelides' breast,
When thus to Greece his haughty vaunts express'd:
“I sack'd twelve ample cities the main,
“And six lay smoking on the Trojan plain;
“Thus full and fervid throb'd the pulse of pride,
“When veni, vidi, vici, Cæsar cried.”
Each vain alike, and differing but in names,
These poets flatter—those the mob acclaims;
Impartial Death soon stops the proud career,
And bids Legendre rot with Dumourier.
The God whose sovereign care o'er all extends,
Sees whence their madness springs, and where it ends;
From his blest height, with just contempt, looks down
On thund'ring heroes and the swaggering clown:
But if our erring reason may presume
The future to divine, more mild his doom
Whose pride was wreck'd on vanquish'd brutes alone,
Than his whose conquests made whole nations groan.
Can Ganges' sacred wave, or Lethe's flood,
Wash clear the garments smear'd with civic blood?
What hand from heaven's dread register shall tear
The page where, stamp'd in blood, the conqueror's crimes appear?