The Christian Scholar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Then the fifth age succeeds, whose course I mourn,
“Would I were dead before, or later born!
“An iron race with toil and care oppress'd,
“Who pause not night or day from their unrest,
“Corrupting; on them woes the Gods shall send,
“Yet even now with good the evil blend.
“For Jove upon them brings a speedy doom,
“And hoary-headed soon they reach the tomb.
“Sons are not like their fathers as of yore;
“The host and guest, the friend and friend no more,
“The brother is no more to brother dear;
“Nor parents soon grown old will sons revere;
“With bitter words they taunt them and complain.
“Wretches, whom not e'en fears of God restrain!
“E'en those who nurtured them they without awe
“Cast off—their own right-hand their only law.
“Each other's cities will they overthrow,
“For one who keeps his oath no reverence know,
“Nor for the just and holy: rather hold
“In honour the ill-doer and the bold .

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“Justice and Shame their right hand cannot stay,
“But the bad make the better man their prey,
“And add to guileful words dread perjuries.
“Envy, with lurid visage and foul eyes,
“With miserable mortals will resort,
“In ill rejoicing, scattering ill report.
“Soon o'er the spacious earth, from mortal sight,
“Covering their beauteous forms with robes of white,
“Reverence and Right shall quit mankind, and rise
“To the immortal mansions of the skies;—
“Nothing but woes remaining with mankind,
“No remedy of evil left behind.”

Such were the symbols erst which walk'd the earth,
And companied in Greece the elder birth
Of glorious Liberty,
Sprung from its parent's head, all-arm'd and free;
Itself baptizing in unhallowed blood
Of kings, of parents, and of brotherhood.
Paternal, priestly, and the kingly rod,
And in and over all the reign of God,
And all of God's vicegerence set at nought;
And Self enthroned;—on wings of eager thought
Casting all self-restraint unto the wind,
And worshipping each God which Self may find.

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Such signs again go forth before its rise
In the great “Lawless one,” and mark the skies;
Evil is found no more, for it is good,
Canonized by the full-voiced multitude.
On tiptoe loud Anticipation stands
Waiting th' opening door, and through all lands
The putting forth the head, and far and wide
Golden opinions, glorious hopes, astride
On Expectation: thence on every side
Partition-walls broke down, scatter'd all bands,
Christian and Jew together shaking hands.
Each his own priest and king and his own God
Which none shall interfere with; for their nod
Is as the many waters: wars must cease,
For mammon is enthron'd as king of peace
Throughout all lands: in the new world all-gold
The casting off of dusty trammels old;
And the great Bishop of all Christendom
Hastens to come down from imperial Rome,
Blessing and shaking hands with anarchy.
We see what is, we see not what shall be.

Conf. 2 Tim. iii. 2—4.