Chapter 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.