Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/123

 The flexile willow ; that the mattoc drives : All are employ'd, and by their works acquire Our fleecy vestures. From their tenements, Pleas'd and refresh'd, proceeds the caravan Thro' lively-spreading cultures, pastures green, And yellow tillages in opening woods ; Thence on, thro' Narim's wilds, a pathless road They force, with rough entangling thorns perplex'd ; Land of the lazy Ostiacs, thin dispers'd, Who, by avoiding, meet the toils they loathe, Tenfold augmented ; miserable tribe ! Void of commercial comforts ; who nor corn, Nor pulse, nor oil, nor heart-enlivening wine, Know to procure; nor spade, nor scythe, nor share, Nor social aid : beneath their thorny bed The serpent hisses, while in thickets nigh Loud howls the hungry wolf. So on they fare, And pass by spacious lakes, begirt with rocks And azure mountains, and the heights admire Of white Imaus, whose snow-nodding crags Frighten the realms beneath, and from their urns Pour mighty rivers down, th' impetuous streams Of Oby' and Irtis, and Jenisca swift, Which rush upon the northern pole, upheave Its frozen seas, and lift their hills of ice. These rugged paths and savage landscapes pass'd, A new scene strikes their eyes : among the clouds Aloft they view, what seems a chain of cliffs, Nature's proud work, that matchless work of art, The wall of China, by Chihoham's power, In earliest times, erected. Warlike troops Frequent are seen in haughty march along Its ridge, a vast extent ! beyond the length Of many a potent empire : towers and ports, Three times a thousand, lift thereon their brows