Shall I spare Great Alexander's fort, nor sack the shrine And plunge his body in the tideless marsh?
Nor drag Amasis from the Pyramids, And all their ancient Kings, to swim the Nile?
Torn from his tomb, that god of all mankind Isis, unburied, shall avenge thy shade; And veiled Osiris shall I hurl abroad In mutilated fragments; and the form Of sacred Apis; (4) and with these their gods Shall light a furnace, that shall burn the head They held in insult.

Thus their land shall pay The fullest penalty for the shameful deed.
No husbandman shall live to till the fields Nor reap the benefit of brimming Nile.
Thou only, Father, gods and men alike Fallen and perished, shalt possess the land." Such were the words he spake; and soon the fleet Had dared the angry deep: but Cato's voice While praising, calmed the youthful chieftain's rage.
Meanwhile, when Magnus' fate was known, the air Sounded with lamentations which the shore Re-echoed; never through the ages past, By history recorded, was it known That thus a people mourned their ruler's death.
Yet more when worn with tears, her pallid cheek Veiled by her loosened tresses, from the ship Cornelia came, they wept and beat the breast.
The friendly land once gained, her husband's garb, His arms and spoils, embroidered deep in gold, Thrice worn of old upon the sacred hill (5) She placed upon the flame.

Such were for her The ashes of her spouse: and such the love Which glowed in every heart, that soon the shore Blazed with his obsequies.

Thus at winter-tide By frequent fires th' Apulian herdsman seeks To render to the fields their verdant growth; Till blaze Garganus' uplands and the meads Of Vultur, and the pasture of the herds By warm Matinum.
Yet Pompeius' shade Nought else so gratified, not all the blame The people dared to heap upon the gods, For him their hero slain, as these few words From Cato's noble breast instinct with truth: "Gone is a citizen who though no peer (6) Of those who disciplined the state of yore In due submission to the bounds of right, Yet in this age irreverent of law Has played a noble part.

Great was his power, But freedom safe: when all the plebs was prone To be his slaves, he chose the private gown; So that the Senate ruled the Roman state, The Senate's ruler: nought by right of arms He e'er demanded: willing took he gifts Yet from a willing giver: wealth was his Vast, yet the coffers of the State he filled Beyond his own.