Arnold's dread falchion, with terrific sway, Rolls on the ranks and rules the doubtful day, Confounds with one wide sweep the astonish'd foes, And bids at last the scene of slaughter close. Pale rout begins, Britannia's broken train Tread back their steps and scatter from the plain, To their strong camp precipitate retire, And wide behind them streams the roaring fire. Meantime, the skirts of war as Johnson gored, His kindred cannibals desert their lord; They scour the waste for undistinguish'd prey, Howl thro the night the horrors of the day, Scalp every straggler from all parties stray'd, Each wounded wanderer thro the moonlight glade; And while the absent armies give them place, Each camp they plunder and each world disgrace. One deed shall tell what fame great Albion draws From these auxiliars in her barbarous cause, Lucinda's fate; the tale, ye nations, hear; Eternal ages, trace it with a tear. Long from the rampart, thro the imbattled field, She spied her Heartly where his column wheel'd, Traced him with steadfast eye and tortured breast, That heaved in concert with his dancing crest; And oft, with head advanced and hand outspread, Seem'd from her Love to ward the flying lead; Till, dimm'd by distance and the gathering cloud; At last he vanish'd in the warrior crowd. She thought he fell; and wild with fearless air, She left the camp to brave the woodland war, Made a long circuit, all her friends to shun, And wander'd wide beneath the falling sun; Then veering to the field, the pickets past, To gain the hillock where she miss'd him last. Fond maid, he rests not there; from finish'd fight He sought the camp, and closed the rear of flight. He hurries to his tent;--oh rage! despair! No glimpse, no tidings of the frantic fair; Save that some carmen, as acamp they drove, Had seen her coursing for the western grove. Faint with fatigue and choked with burning thirst, Forth from his friends with bounding leap he burst, Vaults o'er the palisade with eyes on flame, And fills the welkin with Lucinda's name, Swift thro the wild wood paths phrenetic springs,-- Lucind! Lucinda! thro the wild wood rings. All night he wanders; barking wolves alone And screaming night-birds answer to his moan; For war had roused them from their savage den; They scent the field, they snuff the walks of men. The fair one too, of every aid forlorn, Had raved and wander'd, till officipus morn Awaked the Mohawks from their short repose, To glean the plunder, ere their comrades rose. Two Mohawks met the maid,--historian, hold!-- Poor Human Nature! must thy shame be told? Where then that proud preeminence of birth, Thy Moral Sense? the brightest boast of earth. Had but the tiger changed his heart for thine, Could rocks their bowels with that heart combine, Thy tear had gusht, thy hand relieved her pain, And led Lucinda to her lord again.