Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/291

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BOOK THE EIGHTH.
279
Rest idle from the combat; she, secure 345Aim'd the keen quarrel, taught the cross-bow's useBy the willing mind that what it well desiresGains aptly: nor amid the numerous throng,Tho' haply erring from their destin'd mark,Sped her sharp arrows frustrate. From the tower 350Ceaseless the bow-strings twang: the Knights below,Each by his pavais bulwark'd, thither aim'dTheir darts, and not a dart fell woundless there,So thickly throng'd they stood, and fell as fastAs when the Monarch of the East goes forth 355From Gemna's banks and the proud palacesOf Delhi, the wild monsters of the woodDie in the blameless warfare: closed withinThe still-contracting circle, their brute forceWasting in mutual rage, they perish there, 360Or by each other's fury lacerate,The archer's barbed arrow, or the lanceOf some bold youth of his first exploits vain,Rajah or Omrah, for the war of beasts

Venturous,

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