Timoleon, glorious in his brother's blood:
Bold Scipio, saviour of the Roman state,
Great in his triumphs, in retirement great;
And wise Aurelius, in whose well-taught mind
With boundless power unbounded virtue joined,
His own strict judge, and patron of mankind.
Much-suffering heroes next their honours claim,
Those of less noisy and less guilty fame,
Fair Virtue's silent train: supreme of these
Here ever shines the godlike Socrates;
He whom ungrateful Athens could expel,
At all times just but when he signed the shell:
Here his abode the martyred Phocion claims,
With Agis, not the last of Spartan names:
Unconquered Cato shows the wound he tore,
And Brutus his ill Genius meets no more.
But in the centre of the hallowed choir,
Six pompous columns o'er the rest aspire;
Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand,
Hold the chief honours, and the Fane command.
High on the first the mighty Homer shone;
Eternal adamant composed his throne;
Father of verse! in holy fillets drest,
His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast:
Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears;
In years he seemed, but not impaired by years.
The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen:
Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian Queen;
Here Hector glorious from Patroclus' fall,
Here dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall.