Читать книгу Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems онлайн

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Hen-hearted cowards, as you are?

Arise! and quickly gird your might on,

And into battle then rush right on!

“Go! teach Perkineans their errors,

In tampering with the king of terrors!

Go! teach the varlets to defy

Our great and terrible ally!

No pusilanimous responses

That you’re not fond of broken sconces;

Don’t say to me, you’ve no delight in

The dreadful, awful, trade of fighting.

“For you might chase them many a mile, and

E’en bid them, scampering, quit our island,

And still your carcases be strangers

To troublous toils, and desperate dangers.

“Appear in field, the battle’s won;

Your phizzes show—L—d how they’ll run!

But you’re like sheep, a sort of cattle,

That one can’t well drive into battle.

“O could I but affairs contrive

To be for one half hour alive,

What flaming shafts of indignation

I’d hurl at imps of Tractoration!

“I’ll batter ye with Pluto’s bludgeon,

Unless to battle you now budge on,

And make more bluster with your train,

Than devils in a hurricane!

“I’ll drive ye down”—but dawning day