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(From Musophilus)
AND whereto serves that wondrous trophy now | |
| That on the goodly plain near Walton stands? | |
| That huge dumb heap, that cannot tell us how, | |
| Nor what, nor whence it is, nor with whose hands | |
| Nor for whose glory it was set to show | 5 |
| How much our pride mocks that of other lands. | |
| Whereon, when as the gazing passenger | |
| Had greedy looked with admiration, | |
| And fain would know his birth, and what we were, | |
| How there erected, and how long agon, | 10 |
| Inquires and asks his fellow-traveller | |
| What he had heard, and his opinion. | |
| And he knows nothing. Then he turns again, | |
| And looks and sighs; and then admires afresh, | |
| And in himself with sorrow doth complain | 15 |
| The misery of dark forgetfulness, | |
| Angry with time that nothing should remain, | |
| Our greatest wonders’ wonder to express. | |
| Then Ignorance, with fabulous discourse, | |
| Robbing fair art and cunning of their right, | 20 |
| Tells how those stones were, by the devil’s force, | |
| From Afric brought to Ireland in a night; | |
| And thence to Brittany, by magic course, | |
| From giants’ hands redeemed by Merlin’s sleight. | |
| And then near Ambri placed, in memory | 25 |
| Of all those noble Britons murdered there, | |
| By Hengist and his Saxon treachery, | |
| Coming to parley, in peace at unaware. | |
| With this old legend then Credulity | |
| Holds her content, and closes up her care. | 30 |
| But is Antiquity so great a liar? | |
| Or do her younger sons her age abuse; | |
| Seeing after-comers still so apt to admire | |
| The grave authority that she doth use, | |
| That reverence and respect dares not require | 35 |
| Proof of her deeds, or once her words refuse? | |
| Yet wrong they did us, to presume so far | |
| Upon our early credit and delight; | |
| For once found false, they straight became to mar | |
| Our faith, and their own reputation quite; | 40 |
| That now her truths hardly believéd are; | |
| And though she avouch the right, she scarce hath right. | |
| And as for thee, thou huge and mighty frame, | |
| That stand’st corrupted so with time’s despite, | |
| And giv’st false evidence against their fame, | 45 |
| That set thee there to testify their right; | |
| And art become a traitor to their name, | |
| That trusted thee with all the best they might,— | |
| Thou shalt stand still belied and slandered, | |
| The only gazing-stock of ignorance, | 50 |
| And by thy guile the wise, admonishéd, | |
| Shall nevermore desire such hopes to advance, | |
| Nor trust their living glory with the dead | |
| That cannot speak, but leave their fame to chance. | |
| Considering in how small a room do lie, | 55 |
| And yet lie safe (as fresh as if alive), | |
| All those great worthies of antiquity, | |
| Which long forelived thee, and shall long survive; | |
| Who stronger tombs found for eternity, | |
| Than could the powers of all the earth contrive. | 60 |
| Where they remain these trifles to upbraid, | |
| Out of the reach of spoil and way of rage; | |
| Though time with all his power of years hath laid | |
| Long battery, backed with undermining age, | |
| Yet they make head only with their own aid, | 65 |
| And war with his all-conquering forces wage; | |
| Pleading the heaven’s prescription to be free, | |
| And to have a grant to endure as long as he. | |
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