X. · Section 3

X.

He spoke!--and wav’d his scymitar on air, And rush’d impatient to the promis’d war. Five Gallic warriors sharing in his wrath, Eager pursue his devastating path; And soon around the mighty Briton close, And pour on ev’ry side a show’r of blows. Ah! cease! the pitying Muse forbids to tell, How great, in death, that gallant hero fell!

Still, undiminish’d, Gaul her numbers pours, Vast as the sand that loads the sea-girt shores. 210 E’en by their vict’ries tir’d, in heaps of slain, Fast fall the Britons on the groaning plain. Yet view the various fortunes of that hour, The Anglians’ weakness, and the Frenchmen’s pow’r, You’d find each British form, that loads the ground, Piere’d by _no backward, no inglorious_ wound. And still no murmurs waste their panting breath, When all around they see the works of death; Still with fresh courage they demand to go, And in their turn to charge th’ exulting foe: 220 “On! let us on!” impetuous they cry, “Not thus inglorious,--scarce opposing,--die.” Chief of the Island sons, how great thy praise!-- How bright thy honour!--and how green thy bays! “Wait yet, my friends,” the pitying chief would say, “And conquest still shall be our own this day,-- Wait yet till come the long-expected force, Till valiant Blücher speeds his driving horse.”