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Thus answered:-"Leader of those armies Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion bright Which but the Omnipotent none could Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose

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Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating car

casses

310

And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,

Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,

Under amazement of3 their hideous

change.

He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:-"Princes, Poten-
tates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven, once

yours, now lost,

315

If such astonishment as this can seize Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place

After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you

find

320 To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven? Or in this abject posture have ye sworn To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates dis

cern

326

The advantage, and descending tread us down

Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts

Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n!" 330 They heard, and were abashed, and up

they sprung

Upon the wing; as when men, wont to watch,

On duty sleeping found by whom they dread,

Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; 336 Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed,

Innumerable. As when the potent rod

3 overwhelmed by.

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Like night, and darkened all the land of Roused from the slumber on that fiery Nile:

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couch,

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Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the house of God was bold: A leper once he lost, and gained a king, 471 Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace

For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the gods 475
Whom he had vanquished. After these
appeared

A crew who, under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train,
With monstrous shapes and sorceries
abused2

Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek 480
Their wandering gods disguised in brutish

forms

Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape

By that uxorious king whose heart, though The infection, when their borrowed gold

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