Now am I come to you, while yet your state
    Is happy, ere you feel a harder fate.” 
    “On these you have no power,” she then replied,
    (Who had more worth than all the world beside,)
    “And little over me; but there is one
    Who will be deeply grieved when I am gone,
    His happiness doth on my life depend,
    I shall find freedom in a peaceful end.” 
    As one who glancing with a sudden eye
    Some unexpected object doth espy;
    Then looks again, and doth his own haste blame
    So in a doubting pause, this cruel dame
    A little stay’d, and said, “The rest I call
    To mind, and know I have o’ercome them all:” 
    Then with less fierce aspect, she said, “Thou guide
    Of this fair crew, hast not my strength assay’d,
    Let her advise, who may command, prevent
    Decrepit age, ’tis but a punishment;
    From me this honour thou alone shalt have,
    Without or fear or pain, to find thy grave.” 
    “As He shall please, who dwelleth in the heaven
    And rules on earth, such portion must be given
    To me, as others from thy hand receive,”
    She answered then; afar we might perceive
    Millions of dead heap’d on th’ adjacent plain;
    No verse nor prose may comprehend the slain
    Did on Death’s triumph wait, from India,
    From Spain, and from Morocco, from Cathay,
    And all the skirts of th’ earth they gather’d were;
    Who had most happy lived, attended there: 
    Popes, Emperors, nor Kings, no ensigns wore
    Of their past height, but naked show’d and poor. 
    Where be their riches, where their precious gems,
    Their mitres, sceptres, robes, and diadems? 
    O miserable men, whose hopes arise
    From worldly joys, yet be there few so wise
    As in those trifling follies not to trust;
    And if they be deceived, in end ’tis just: 
    Ah! more than blind, what gain you by your toil? 
    You must return once to your mother’s soil,
    And after-times your names shall hardly know,
    Nor any profit from your labour grow;
    All those strange countries by your warlike stroke
    Submitted to a tributary yoke;
    The fuel erst of your ambitious fire,
    What help they now?  The vast and bad desire
    Of wealth and power at a bloody rate
    Is wicked,—­better bread and water eat
    With peace; a wooden dish doth seldom hold
    A poison’d draught; glass is more safe than gold;
    But for this theme a larger time will ask,
    I must betake me to my former task. 
    The fatal hour of her short life drew near,
    That doubtful passage which the world doth fear;
    Another company, who had not been
    Freed from their earthy burden there were seen,
    To try if prayers could appease the wrath,
    Or stay th’ inexorable hand, of Death. 
    That beauteous crowd convened