Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Written on a Marble

The world's something bigger,
But just of this figure
And speckled with mountains and seas;
Your heroes are overgrown schoolboys
Who scuffle for empires and toys,
And kick the poor ball as they please.
Now Cæsar, now Pompey, gives law;
And Pharsalia's plain,
Though heaped with the slain,
Was only a game at taw.