So fixt with ice and snows it did appear, That its aspiring top the globe might bear. Here conquering Cæsar leads his joyful bands, And on the proudest cliff consid'ring stands. The distant plains of Italy surveys, And, hands and voice to heaven directed, says Almighty Jove and you, Saturnia, found, Safe by my arms, oft with my triumph's crown'd. Witness these arms unwillingly I wear, Unwillingly I come to wage this war, Compell'd by injuries too great to bear. Banisht my country, while I make the flood, That laves the Rhine, run purple all with blood. While the Gauls, ripe our Rome to re-invade, I force to skulk behind their Alps afraid: By conquering my banishment's secur'd. Are sixty triumphs not to be endur'd? A German conquest reckon'd such a fault? By whom is glory such a monster thought? Or who the vile supporters of this war? A foreign spawn, a mobb in arms appear, At once Rome's scandal, and at once her care. No slavish soul shall bind this arm with chains, And unreveng'd triumph it o're the plains. Bold with success still to new conquests lead, Come, my companions, thus my cause I'le plead, The sword shall plead our cause, for to us all Does equal guilt, and equal danger, call: Oblig'd by you I conquer'd, not alone. Since to be punisht is the victor's crown, Fortune invokt begin the offer'd war, My cause is pleaded when you bravely dare, With such an army, who success can fear. Thus Cæsar spoke: from the propitious sky Descending eagles, boding victory, Drive the slow winds before 'em as they fly. From the left side of a dark wood proceed Unwonted crys, which dying, flames succeed. The sun-beams with unusual brightness rise And spread new glories round the gilded skies. New fir'd with omens of the promis'd day, Cæsar o're untrod mountain leads the way; Where th' frozen earth o're-clad with ice and snows, At first not yielding to their horses blows, A dreadful quiet in dull stiffness shows. But when their trembling hoofs had burst the chain, And soften'd milky clouds of hardned rain; So quick the melted snows to rivers run, That soon a deluge from the mountains sprung. But thus you'd think 'twere done by fates decrees, For the flood stopt, and billows rising freeze, And yielding waves but now are rocks of ice. The slippery passage now their feet betray, When soon in miserable heaps o' th' way, Men, horse, arms, in wild confusion lay. Now pregnant clouds, with whirling blasts are torn, And, bursting, are deliver'd of a storm: Large stones of hail the troubl'd heavens shoot, That by tempestuous winds are whirl'd about; So thick it pours, whole clouds of snow and hail, Like frozen billows, on their armour fall: The earth lay vanquished under mighty snow,