XXIX.
Now from the summit, at his call,
A gallant legion firm and slow
Advances on victorious Gaul;
Undaunted, though their comrades fall!
Unshaken, though their leader’s low!
Fix’d—as the high and buttress’d mound
Which guards some leaguer’d city round,
They stand unmoved—Behind them form
The scatter’d fragments of the storm;
While on their sheltering front, amain
France drives, with all her thundering train,
Her full career of death:
But drives not long her full career,
For now, that living bulwark near,
Fault’ring between fatigue and fear
She stops and pants for breath:
That dubious pause, that wavering rest,
The Britons seize, and breast to breast
Opposing, havoc’s arm arrest,
And from the foe’s exulting crest,
Tear down the laurel wreath.