Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/72

62 Who is there left their fury to withstand? What champions now to guard thy helpless land? Who is there left in listed fields to head Thy valiant youth, and lead them on to victory? Alas? thy valiant youth are dead, And all thy brave commanders too: Lo! how the glut and riot of the grave thus lie, And none survive the fatal overthrow, To right their injured ghosts upon the barbarous foe! Rest, ye blessed shades, in everlasting peace, Who fell your country's bloody sacrifice: For ever sacred be your memories, And oh! ere long may some avenger rise To wipe off heaven's and your disgrace: May they, these proud insulting foes, Wash off our stains of honour with their blood; May they ten thousandfold repay our loss, For every life a myriad, every drop a flood!

REAT thou! whom 'tis a crime almost to dare to praise, Whose firm, established, and unshaken glories stand, And proudly their own fame command, Above our power to lessen or to raise, And all, but the few heirs of thy brave genius, and thy bays;