Rose from the hostile hosts. The exultant Franks For speedy succour there, with deafening shout Its bulk of waters, tho' amid the fall Lo! on the bridge he stands, the undaunted man He, undismayed tho' on that perilous height, Of his tumultuous comrades from the wall ་ Thrust headlong. Nor did Conrade cease to hur The tower was stor'd with weapons, to the Chief Aim'd the keen quarrel, taught the cross-bow's use Or by each other's fury lacerate, The archer's barbed arrow, or the lance Of some bold youth of his first exploits vain, For now the French their scaling ladders place, Or frantic rage supplies: huge stones and beams Gnaws thro' their members, leap down desperate, Still dare the perilous way. Nor dangerless * Fast fled the arrows; the large brass-wing'd darts, There driven resistless from the espringal, Keeping their impulse even in the wound, Whirl as they pierce the victim. Some fall crush'd Transfix'd. The death-fraught cannon's thundering roar And Terror's wild shriek echo o'er the plain In dreadful harmony. Meantime the Chief, Who equall'd on the bridge the rampart's height, * These darts were called Viretons, from their whirling about in the air. Prest on to thrust him from that perilous height; At once they rush'd upon him: he, his axe Dropping, the dagger drew one thro' the throat He pierced, and swinging his broad buckler round, Dash'd down his comrade. So, unmoved he stood, The sire of Guendolen, that daring man, * Corineus; grappling with his monstrous foe, *And here, with leave bespoken to recite a grand fable, though dignifyed by our best poets, while Brutus on a certain festival day, solemnly kept on that shore where he first landed, was with the people in great jollity and mirth, a crew of these savages breaking in among them, began on the sudden another sort of game than at such a meeting was expected. But at length by many hands overcome, Goemagog the hugest, in height twelve cubits, is reserved alive, that with him Corineus who desired nothing more, might try his strength; whom in a wrestle the giant catching aloft, with a terrible bugg broke three of his ribs: nevertheless Corineus enraged heaving him up by main force, and on his shoulders bearing him to the next high rock, threw him headlong all shattered into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, called ever since Langoemagog, which is to say, the Giant's leap." The expression brute vastness is taken from the same Milton. work of " Well |