Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/99

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A POEM.
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Or shine in daring Lucan's manly strain,Who sung of freedom in a tyrant's reign. Still in Greek annals live their mighty dead:The whole we see—and feel whate'er we read.But if great Homer's martial trumpet sound,Then troops expire, and heroes bite the ground; 140Steeds neigh, swords gleam, darts hiss, and helmets nod,And hills of carnage dam the streams of blood. A muse more sacred, next the roll expands,Which shook tall Sinai, and his heaving sands:From tented hosts on Edom's sultry plain,O'er Egypt's warriors wakes the exulting strain:Impetuous chieftains Judah's God defy,As fierce Rabsaces lifts his voice on high:"March on, ye hosts, by great Sennacherib led,And tread each river from its marshy bed. 150Hark how the cedars of the mountain fall;The lofty mound o'ertops proud Salem's wall;While, as the clouds of arrows blot the day,Like mildewed grass, the Hebrew tribes decay." And here the sage, by reason's power refined,Anatomizes all the tribes of mind;Her various powers and faculties explores;How she collects, how treasures wisdom's stores.—
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