Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/114

 That joys mankind the arbitrary Turk Delights not : insolent of rule, he spreads Thraldom and desolation o'er his realms. Another path to Scythia's wide domains Commerce discovers : the Livonian gulf Receives her sails, and leads them to the port Of rising Petersburg, whose splendid streets Swell with the webs of Leeds ; the Cossac there, The Calmuc, and Mungalian, round the bales In crowds resort, and their warm'd limbs enfold, Delighted ; and the hardy Samoïd, Rough with the stings of frost, from his dark caves Ascends, and thither hastes, ere winter's rage O'ertake his homeward step ; and they that dwell Along the banks of Don's and Volga's streams, And borderers of the Caspian, who renew That ancient path to India's climes which fill'd With proudest affluence the Colchian state. Many have been the ways to those renown'd Luxuriant climes of Indus, early known To Memphis, to the port of wealthy Tyre, To Tadmor, beauty of the wilderness, Who down along Euphrates sent her sails, And sacred Salem, when her numerous fleets From Ezion-geber pass'd th' Arabian gulf. But later times, more fortunate, have found O'er ocean's open wave a surer course, Sailing the western coast of Afric's realms, Of Mauritania, and Nigritian tracks, And islands of the Orcades, the bounds, On the Atlantic brine, of ancient trade, But not of modern, by the virtue led Of Gama and Columbus. The whole globe Is now of commerce made the scene immense, Which daring ships frequent, associated