Classic Poem

The Florentines—well-spoken smooth-tongued varlets;
The Romans—skilled in every kind of knavery;
The Neapolitans—buffoons and harlots;
The Genoese—who patient starve in slavery;
The Turinese—to other's faults quick-sighted;
The lazy, careless, let alone Venetians;
The honest Milanese, with feasts delighted;
And the Lucchese who bore one like Patricians:
In idleness and vice alone agreeing,
Such are thy heterogenous sons and daughters,
All, all, a shame to her, who gave them being
Whilst thou, Italia! sport of foreign slaughters,
Lie spoiled and scorned—thy wretchedness not seeing,
Forgotten, sunk, and lost in Lethe's waters.

Poor sickly waste! that call'st thyself a State,
And art but desolation—fields untilled,
Peopled with spectres whose gaunt looks are filled
With want—guilt—cowardice and blood-stained hate;
A Senate's ghost—to act not—nor debate—
Mean paltry craft, in gold and purple drest—
Rich, noble fools—the richest always best—
And a priest-king through others' folly great!
A city citizenless—Temples grand,
But no Religion—Law of crime the nurse
Forever changing, always for the worse—
And Keys that let Heaven's gate wide open stand
For all the wickedness earth ever planned—
Art thou not Rome the seat of every curse?