Series 1 > Grameid: an heroic poem descriptive of the campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689, and other pieces

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PANURGI PHILOCABALLI [700-719
Scaurius Auriaci dux agminis impius acri
Marte premit patriam peregrine milite fretus,
Et conjurati subnixus viribus orbis,
Intonat horrendum, et magna se mole ferebat.
Jam fremit incassum totas efFundere vires
Exultansque animo vana spe praecipit hostem,
Atque ilium crebris assultibus irritus urget.
Nunc trahit arte moras, qua vi quove hostica possit
Sternere castra dolo, crudoque exscindere ferro.
Haud aliter lassus longo certamine taurus,
Quemdudum totos armenta secuta per agros
Constituere ducem, nunc intra septa reclusus
Aestuat, et saevi laniandus dente molossi,
Torva tuens campum ingreditur, mugitque tremendum ;
Nunc pede pro subigit terram, nunc cornua duris
Postibus infigit, sed ab omni parte cruentus
Hostis adest, fumant atque atro sanguine fauces
Et madet albenti spumarum aspergine cervix.
Ast ubi jam non plura videt se posse, suasque
In ventum effundi vires, se vertit ad artes
nor equal divinities, nor is their cause alike. Scourie, the impious
Dutch General, comes as the oppressor of his country, trusting in
a foreign soldiery, and backed by the strength of the allies.1
Dread is his thunder, and with great might does he bear himself,
while he fruitlessly burns to put forth his whole strength, and
exults in the vain hope of a first advantage over his enemy. But
to no effect does he press him with frequent assaults. Now does
he frame delay by art, that he may consider by what force, by
what strategy, he may be able to destroy his enemy, and cut him
off by the sword. Thus a bull which in the open country was
hitherto the accepted leader of the free herds which followed him,
now at length enclosed within a field, wearied out after long
resistance, and wounded by the savage tooth of the dog, turns with
gloomy ferocity, and advances with loud bellowings. Now he
tears up the turf with his feet, now he drives his horns into the
palings, but wherever he goes there is his enemy. His mouth
reeks with dark blood, his neck is flecked with white foam. But
when at length he sees he can do no more, and that his strength
is wasting away in the air, he betakes himself to arts, by
1 ‘ Subnixus viribus conjurati orbis.’ The Poet makes very frequent allusion
to the allies of whom William of Orange was Generalissimo.