THE RUINS,
OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES
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INVOCATION.
Solitary ruins, sacred tombs, ye mouldering and silent walls, all
hail! To you I address my invocation. While the vulgar shrink
from your aspect with secret terror, my heart finds in the
contemplation a thousand delicious sentiments, a thousand admirable
recollections. Pregnant, I may truly call you, with useful
lessons, with pathetic and irresistible advice to the man who knows
how to consult you. A while ago the whole world bowed the neck in
silence before the tyrants that oppressed it; and yet in that
hopeless moment you already proclaimed the truths that tyrants hold
in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the proudest kings with that of
the meanest slaves, you called upon us to contemplate this example
of Equality. From your caverns, whither the musing and anxious
love of Liberty led me, I saw escape its venerable shade, and with
unexpected felicity, direct its flight and marshal my steps the way
to renovated France.
Tombs! what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at
your aspect--you poison with secret alarm their impious pleasures--
they turn from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavor to
forget you amid the sumptuousness of their palaces.
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