Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

Some Verses of an Imperfect Copy, Designed for a Friend, on His Translation of Ovid’s ‘Fasti.’

Rome’s holy-days you tell, as if a guest
With the old Romans you were wont to feast.
Numa’s religion, by themselves believed,
Excels the true, only in show received.
They made the nations round about them bow,
With their dictators taken from the plough;
Such power has justice, faith, and honesty!
The world was conquer’d by morality.
Seeming devotion does but gild a knave,
That’s neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave;
But where religion does with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine.