The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre · Thomas Sprat
VII.
Unhappy _Athens_! it is true, thou wert The proudest work of Nature and of Art: Learning and strength did thee compose, As soul and body us: But yet thou onely thence art made A nobler prey for Fates t’ invade. Those mighty numbers that within thee breath, Do onely serve to make a fatter feast for Death. Death in the most frequented places lives, Most tribute from the croud receives; And though it bears a sigh, and seems to own A rustick life alone: It loves no Wilderness, No scattred Villages, But mighty populous Palaces, The throng, the tumult, and the town; What strange, unheard-of Conqueror is this, Which by the forces that resist it doth increase! When other Conquerors are Oblig’d to make a slower war, Nay sometimes for themselves may fear, And must proceed with watchful care, When thicker troops of enemies appear; This stronger still, and more successeful grows, Down sooner all before it throws, If greater multitudes of men do it oppose.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.