Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/244

 238 REDEMPTION.

Loud as when Hecla roars, or ocean's surge, The central orb shook, where apart they sat:

" Hell, on herself, for shame, might well recoil, Were sole such counsels to employ her peers. Not that I scout these baubles in their place; Nor those, who use, of laurels strip so won. But, death is the grand argument of hell; That, for which, hell endures; nor more would be Hell, death extinct, than heav'n, heav'n without life. Destruction is our aim, our purpose sole, The whole weight of our war, and Heav'n's despite. Earth planted He with life, and lasting joy; Hell came, and grafted death on all it saw; On man, on beast, on flow'r and tree, diffuse, And draped in mourning all this vast terrene. Should we from our glum shadow now recoil, Hell darts would of themselves take wings and slay. For death, I plead then, torture, blood; and laugh, The more I see our gory hands imbrued; So most, when arm'd on armed rushing, hosts Are slain, and seas of blood roll slipp'ry o'er The plains. Let Death then in all shapes assault Their ranks; num'rous our own, a handful theirs, Who, soon o'erwhelm'd, swept from the earth away, Will leave us as before, supreme in pow'r. Bid each high priest of all our tow'ring states, Send Feciales to the hostile field, To hurl the spear defiant midst their ranks; Alarm the states; the gods in danger cry; Devise new tortures, quiv'ring limbs to tear; Hurl to wild beasts, and slow consume with fire ; Crush, stone, transfix, scourge, rack, boil, crucify,

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