Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/114
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CLYDE;
But fairer Roseneath's towers, where, spreading wide, Rolls on the mighty majesty of Clyde, From Lennox hills, which, towering, prop the sky, To where his fleets in spacious harbours lie; Where, crowned with wood, fair hills embrace the bay, Where Newport smiles in youthful lustre gay; 500 Where the broad marsh, a shuddering surface, lies, Fair Greenock's spires in new-born beauty rise; And many an infant city rises round, Emerging swiftly from the teeming ground; So poets tell, that by prolific Nile, Whole nations issued from the marshy soil; And if the muse can future fates divine, They all at last in one vast port shall join; While groves of masts aloft in ether rise, And cordage warping wide obscures the skies. 510As in the film-winged bee's industrious hive, Some stretch their wings for flight, and some arrive, Some treasure in their cells the golden store, And some, adventurous, fail in quest of more; So fleets arriving here with every gale, Within the port shall drop the flying sail; While some departing shall their wings display, To greet the rising, or the falling day;