436 . ANCIENT CLASSICS. 
«* But now the land its. horrid harvest 
brings. 
A giant arm’d from every furrow springs: 
And helms, and shields, and lances, all 
~ around, 
Like bearded corn, rose bristling o’er the 
ground, 
The sacred space of Mars, the scourge of 
man.— 
To Heaven’s high vaults the gleaming splen- 
dours ran. 
When wintry storms, surcharg'd with va- 
pours, flow, 
And heap along the ground the drifted snow, 
The clouds disperse, and thro’ the gloom of 
night, 
The starry train emerge, in dazzling light ; 
Thus, sudden brightness shot along the land. 
Admonish’d by the virgin’s wise commund, 
A circling stone, of mighty weight and size, 
A. disk for dreadful Mars the youth espies ; 
Searee could four men th’ enormous mass 
sustain. 
With ease the hero rais’d it from the plain ; 
Then, rushing forward, with a sudden bound, 
Aloft in air he hurl’d it, round and round. 
Distant it fell amid th’ embattled field. 
The youth collected shrunk behind his 
shield, 
Yet with intrepid heart—The Colchians 
roar, 
Like billows, when they lash the rocky 
shore.— 
With mute and blank amaze their king be- 
held, 
What force. stupendous the huge disk im- 
ell’ d.— 
In pitt loud, as barking dogs engage, 
Those earth-born brothers round that discus 
rage, 
With hideous din ; and by each other’s hand, 
Pierc’d thro’ with spears, they sunk, along 
the land. 
Like oaks, uprooted by the whirlwind’s 
sway, 
Or mountain pines o’erturn’d in ranks, they 
lay. 
As Hoe astar portentous to mankind, ~%\ 
And falling draws atrain of hght behind; — 
So bright, at once, and terrible to view, 
The youthful warrior on the giants flew. 
The naked falchion lighten’d in his band ; 
And wounds promiscuous fell’d the rising 
band. 
Some, half ascended into life he found ; 
Some to the breast yet struggling in the 
ground ; , 
Some newly freed stood upright on the soil. 
Some, forward rush’d to claim the martial 
toil.— 
As when a land becomes the seat of war, 
‘The farmer marks the foe’s approach from 
far 
And lest the spoilers should possess the grain, 
Anticipates the harvest of the plain ; 
The curving sickle newly edg’e he bears, 
And o’er the furrows fall th’ unripen’d ears ; 
He bears the corn, with fearful haste, away; 
Ere yet its tinge bespeaks the solar ray ; 
Dire harvest, Jason reap'd that earth-born 
brood ; 
And all th’ o’erflowing, furrows boil’d with 
blood. 
Swell’d by continual rains, as torrents spread, 
Despise their banks, and inundate the mead. 
In various postures they resign’d their breath, 
And grim and diverse were the forms of 
death.— 
Some bit the empurpled earth, and prostrate 
lay ; 
Some backward fell, and breath’d their souls 
away 5 
Some lean‘d half-rais'd, and panted to the 
wind; 
Some sidelong writh'd, in agonies reclin’d ; 
Tren, sunk, extended in eternal sleep ; 
Like mighty whales, that slumber o’er the 
deep.— 
He elad some, fast rooted in the ground, 
With head inclining droop’d beneath the 
wound; 
High as erewhile to heav’n they rear’d the 
crest, 
So low they sunk, with damps of death op- 
prest ; 
Thus youthful plants, surcharg’d with storm 
and rain, 
Hang their moist heads, and languish to the 
plain, 
Bent from the roots; the gardener, in de= 
spair, 
Surveys the prostrate offspring of his care: 
And weeps his toils defrauded of their scope, 
The pride of autumn lost, Pomona’s ra- 
vish’d hope.— 
Such grief and rage the monarch’s bosom 
knew, 
As o’er th’ expiring train he cast his view. 
He sought the city, with the Colchian 
throng, 
Resolving vengeance, as he mov'd along.— 
The second conflict with the day was clos’d. 
The sun declin’d, and all the train repos'd.”’ 
The second volume of this work con- 
‘sists of notes and observations on the 
poem, in part extracted from the former 
commentators, and the Greek scholiasts, 
and in part supplied from the author’s 
personal reading and judgment. The 
third volume comprises translations, 
from the bibliotheca of Apollodorus, 
and the Argonautics, which bear the_ 
name of Orpheus, with the following 
essays, the first on the life of Apollonius 
Rhodius, the second on the Argonautie 
expedition, the third, on the manners of 
the heroic ages, considered with a re- 
ference to poetry, the fourth, on the poe- 
tical character of Apollonius Rhodius, 
the fifth, Apollonius Rhodius and Vir- 
gil compared, the sixth, on the geogras 
