Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/65

Rh The monster stalks, the terror of the field.

From Gath he sprung, Goliath was his name,

Of fierce deportment and gigantic frame:

A brazen helmet on his head was placed,

A coat of mail his form terrific graced;

The greaves his legs, the targe his shoulders prest;

Dreadful in arms, high towering o'er the rest,

A spear he proudly waved, whose iron head.

Strange to relate, six hundred shekels weighed:

He strode along, and shook the ample field,

While Phoebus blazed refulgent on his shield.

Through Jacob's race a chilling honor ran,

When thus the huge, enormous chief began:

"Say, what the cause, that in this proud array,

"You set your battle in the face of day?

"One hero find in all your vaunting train,

"Then see who loses, and who wins the plain;

"For he who wins, in triumph may demand

"Perpetual service from the vanquished land:

"Your armies I defy, your force despise,

"By far inferior in Philistia's eyes:

"Produce a man and let us try the fight,

"Decide the contest, and the victor's right."

Thus challenged he: all Israel stood amazed,

And ev'ry chief in consternation gazed;

But Jesse's son, in youthful bloom appears,

And warlike courage far beyond his years:

He left the folds, he left the flow'ry meads

And soft recesses of the sylvan shades.

Now Israel's monarch and his troops arise,