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WELL have we speeded, and o’er hill and dale, | |
| Forest and field and flood, temples and towers, | |
| Cut shorter many a league: here thou behold’st | |
| Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds, | |
| Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on | 5 |
| As far as Indus east, Euphrates west, | |
| And oft beyond: to south the Persian bay, | |
| And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth: | |
| Here Nineveh, of length within her wall | |
| Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old, | 10 |
| Of that first golden monarchy the seat, | |
| And seat of Salmanassar, whose success | |
| Israel in long captivity still mourns: | |
| There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues, | |
| As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice | 15 |
| Judah and all thy father David’s house | |
| Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste, | |
| Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis, | |
| His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there; | |
| Ecbatana her structure vast there shows, | 20 |
| And Hecatompylos her hundred gates; | |
| There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream, | |
| The drink of none but kings; of later fame, | |
| Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands, | |
| The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there | 25 |
| Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon, | |
| Turning with easy eye, thou mayst behold. | |
| All these the Parthian (now some ages past, | |
| By great Arsaces led, who founded first | |
| That empire) under his dominion holds, | 30 |
| From the luxurious kings of Antioch won. | |
| And just in time thou com’st to have a view | |
| Of his great power; for now the Parthian king | |
| In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host | |
| Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild | 35 |
| Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid | |
| He marches now in haste; see, though from far, | |
| His thousands, in what martial equipage | |
| They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms, | |
| Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit; | 40 |
| All horsemen, in which fight they most excel: | |
| See how in warlike muster they appear, | |
| In rhombs and wedges and half-moons and wings. | |
| He looked, and saw what numbers numberless | |
| The city gates outpoured, light-arméd troops, | 45 |
| In coats of mail and military pride; | |
| In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong, | |
| Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice | |
| Of many provinces from bound to bound: | |
| From Arachosia, from Candaor east, | 50 |
| And Margiana to the Hyrcanian cliffs | |
| Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales; | |
| From Atropatia and the neighboring plains | |
| Of Adiabene, Media, and the south | |
| Of Susiana, to Balsara’s haven. | 55 |
| He saw them in their forms of battle ranged, | |
| How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot | |
| Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face | |
| Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight: | |
| The field all iron cast a gleaming brown; | 60 |
| Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor on each horn | |
| Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight, | |
| Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers | |
| Of archers; nor of laboring pioneers | |
| A multitude, with spades and axes armed | 65 |
| To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill, | |
| Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay | |
| With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke; | |
| Mules after these, camels and dromedaries, | |
| And wagons, fraught with útensils of war. | 70 |
| Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, | |
| When Agrican with all his northern powers | |
| Besieged Albracca, as romances tell, | |
| The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win | |
| The fairest of her sex, Angelica, | 75 |
| His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, | |
| Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemain. | |
| Such and so numerous was their chivalry. | |
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