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 450
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, 455
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, 460
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 465
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 47
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, 475
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, 480
Three times a thousand, lift thereon their brows