Come to my help, and with thy stiffening breath Clog their strain'd helms, distend their limbs indeath. Tho ancient enmity our realms divide, And oft thy chains arrest my laboring tide, Let strong necessity our cause combine, Thy own disgrace anticipate in mine; Even now their oars thy sleet in vain congeals, Thy crumbling ice-cakes crash beneath their keels; Their impious arms already cope with ours, And mortal man defies immortal Powers. Roused at the call, the Monarch mounts the storm; In muriat flakes he robes his nitrous form, Glares thro the compound, all its blast inhales, And seas turn crystal where he breathes his gales. He comes careering o'er his bleak domain, But comes untended by his usual train; Hail, sleet and snow-rack far behind him fly, Too weak to wade thro this petrific sky, Whose air consolidates and cuts and stings, And shakes hoar tinsel from its flickering wings. Earth heaves and cracks beneath the alighting god; He gains the pass, bestrides the roaring flood, Shoots from his nostrils one wide withering sheet Of treasured meteors on the struggling fleet; The waves conglaciate instant, fix in air, Stand like a ridge of rocks, and shiver there. The barks, confounded in their headlong surge, Or wedged in crystal, cease their oars to urge; Some with prone prow, as plunging down the deep, And some remounting o'er the slippery steep Seem laboring still, but moveless, lifeless all; And the chill'd army here awaits its fall. But Hesper, guardian of Hesperia's right, From his far heaven looks thro the rayless night; And, stung to vengeance at the unequal strife, To save her host, in jeopardy of life, Starts from his throne, ascends his flamy car. And turns tremendous to the field of war. His wheels, resurging from the depth of even, Roll back the night, streak wide the startled heaven, Regain their easting with reverted gyres, And stud their path with scintillating fires. He cleaves the clouds; and, swift as beams of day, O'er California sweeps his splendid way; Missouri's mountains at his passage nod, And now sad Delaware feels the present god, And trembles at his tread. For here to fight Rush two dread Powers of such unmeasured might, As threats to annihilate his doubtful reign, Convulse the heaven and mingle earth and main.