A POEМ.
93
Enormous tubes, like roaring tempests, sound;
Loud ring the anvils as the blows go round: 280
Scarce Ætna saw a more tremendous sight,
Her red cells glowing with infernal light;
Where, drenched with sweat, with smoking sulphur dun,
Toiled her vast brood, who never saw the sun:
Nor e'er were forged in Ætna's dreary caves,
Where the red lava rolls his burning waves,
More awful weapons of destructive might,
Than those dire tubes that thin the ranks of fight.
Through Carron's channel, now with Kelvin joined,
The wondering barks a ready passage find: 290
The ships, on swelling billows wont to rise,
On solid mountains climb to scale the skies;
Old ocean sees the fleets forsake his floods,
Sail the firm land, the mountains and the woods;
And safely thus conveyed, they dread no more
Rough northern seas which round the Orkneys roar.
Not thus the wave of Forth was joined to Clyde,
When Rome's broad rampart stretched from tide to tide,
With bulwarks strong, with towers sublimely crowned,
While winding tubes conveyed each martial sound. 300
To guard the legions from their painted foes,
By vast unwearied toil the rampire rose;
Loud ring the anvils as the blows go round: 280
Scarce Ætna saw a more tremendous sight,
Her red cells glowing with infernal light;
Where, drenched with sweat, with smoking sulphur dun,
Toiled her vast brood, who never saw the sun:
Nor e'er were forged in Ætna's dreary caves,
Where the red lava rolls his burning waves,
More awful weapons of destructive might,
Than those dire tubes that thin the ranks of fight.
Through Carron's channel, now with Kelvin joined,
The wondering barks a ready passage find: 290
The ships, on swelling billows wont to rise,
On solid mountains climb to scale the skies;
Old ocean sees the fleets forsake his floods,
Sail the firm land, the mountains and the woods;
And safely thus conveyed, they dread no more
Rough northern seas which round the Orkneys roar.
Not thus the wave of Forth was joined to Clyde,
When Rome's broad rampart stretched from tide to tide,
With bulwarks strong, with towers sublimely crowned,
While winding tubes conveyed each martial sound. 300
To guard the legions from their painted foes,
By vast unwearied toil the rampire rose;
