And see the good old seat, whose Gothic towers
Awful emerge from yonder tufted bowers;
Whose rafter'd hall the crowding tenants fed,
And dealt to Age and Want their daily bread:
Where garter'd knights, with peerless beauties join'd,
At high and solemn festivals have din'd;
Presenting oft fair Virtue's shining task,
In mystic pageantries, and moral masque.
But vain all ancient praise, or boasts of birth,
Vain all the palms of old heroic worth!
At once a bankrupt, and a prosperous heir,
Hilario bets — Park, house, dissolve in air.
With antique armour hung, high trophied rooms
Descend to gamesters, prostitutes, and grooms.
He sees his steel-clad sires, and mothers mild,
Who bravely shook the lance, or sweetly smil'd,
All the fair series of the whisker'd race,
Whose pictur'd forms the stately gallery grace,
Debas'd, abus'd, the price of ill-got gold,
To deck some tavern vile, at auctions sold.
The parish wonders at th' unopening door,
The chimnies blaze, the tables groan no more.
Thick weeds around th' untrodden courts arise,
And all the social scene in silence lies.
Himself, the loss politely to repair,
Turns atheist, fidler, highwayman, or player.
At length, the scorn, the shame of Man and God,
Is doom'd to rub the steeds that once he rode.