NOTES.
181
The furious elements in vain contend;
Unmoved the mighty natural breastworks stand:
Their awful heights in threatening grandeur shine,
Emblems of mightier hearts of stone within:
The instructing rocks invincible and strong,
Describe the race that to these rocks belong;
And bid the quick retreating waves declare,
And warn the world against a northern war:
Tell them the hopes of conquest must be vain,
When hands of steel shall rocks of flint maintain.
The thirsts of honour generous minds bewitch,
And danger tempts the brave, as gold the rich.
Unmoved the mighty natural breastworks stand:
Their awful heights in threatening grandeur shine,
Emblems of mightier hearts of stone within:
The instructing rocks invincible and strong,
Describe the race that to these rocks belong;
And bid the quick retreating waves declare,
And warn the world against a northern war:
Tell them the hopes of conquest must be vain,
When hands of steel shall rocks of flint maintain.
The thirsts of honour generous minds bewitch,
And danger tempts the brave, as gold the rich.
In spite of coward cold, the race is brave;
In action daring, and in council grave:
Their haughty souls in danger always grow;
No man durst lead them, where they durst not go
Fierce when resolved, and fixed as bars of brass;
And conquest through their blood can only pass.
In action daring, and in council grave:
Their haughty souls in danger always grow;
No man durst lead them, where they durst not go
Fierce when resolved, and fixed as bars of brass;
And conquest through their blood can only pass.
No battle where they fought was ever lost———[1].
P. 159. v. 40. In the collection intitled "Certayne Matters," &c. 1597, it is said, "In Schetland the isles called Thule, at the time when the sunne enters the sign of Cancer, for the space of twenty dayes there appears no night at all." Defoe likewise alludes to the lingering of the sun beams on the hills of Shetland in the following passage:
Phœnician sailors, wise in ignorance,
That dreamed of Thule, yet afraid to advance,
That dreamed of Thule, yet afraid to advance,
- ↑ Defoe's Caledonia, Edin. 1706.
