University of Virginia Library

The Description of the Drought.

While Godfrey in his active mind revolves
The martial plan, and mighty things resolves,
Now enter'd the celestial Crab, the sun
With beams direct, unusual heat darts down:
The sacred troops, for warlike toil unfit,
Drooping beneath their useless armour sit.
Each gentle star's extinguish'd in the skies,
While in their stead ill-boding planets rise;
Which on the army noxious fervors shed,
And thro' the air a baleful influence spread.
Horrors on horrors rise, a fatal night
Succeeds the fatal day's malignant light;
The fatal day's malignant light reveals
Signs of new terror, and augmented ills.
The sun all dreadful in his rising seems,
With sanguine tresses, and polluted beams;
With blood distain'd his radiant face appears,
And sad presages all his aspect wears:
'Till having gain'd the zenith's lofty height,
He darts a stronger, and more piercing light;
Blasts all the verdant beauty of the meads,
While ev'ry plant and flow'ry blossom fades.
Mountains and valleys desolate appear,
The cleaving hills all wither'd, curst and bare,
The dismal marks of heav'n's displeasure wear.
The rivers at their inmost springs decay,
While horrid signs the fiery clouds display
The airy space a smoking furnace seems,
With stifling vapours, and pernicious steams.
To cool the air no gentle gales arise,
Each Zephyr silent in his cavern lies;
Only the south from Afric's burning sands,
With scorching blasts infests the Christian bands:
Nor milder breezes with the ev'ning come,
But sultry still, and all enflam'd the gloom;
While gliding fires, and comets strangely bright,
Glare thro' the sable shadows of the night.
The languid moon sheds from her silent sphere
No cooling dews, the thirsty ground to chear.
The flow'rs decay, each tree and verdant plant
Pine at their roots, and vital moisture want.
From these unquiet nights sleep takes its flight,
In vain the troops the drowzy god invite.
But thirst, of all their ills, the worst remains,
He dies who drinks, he dies whoe'er abstains.
For poisons mingled by the Pagan king,
Infected ev'ry stream, and bubling spring:
Like gloomy Styx, or cursed Acheron,
The black, contagious, troubled waves roll on.
Scarce silver Siloah glides above its sands,
Whose streams before supply'd the Christian bands:
But now the swelling Po, that mighty stream,
To sate their thirst would scarce sufficient seem;
Nor Ganges, nor great Nile, when all around
His rising waves o'erflow their loftiest bound.
The tempting thought of cool, unsully'd streams,
And bubling springs, the fierce disease enflames;
And he who had observ'd some crystal pool,
Or down the Alps a living torrent roll;
Recals the flatt'ring images again,
Which still exasperates his fervid pain.
The mightiest chiefs, with noble heat inspir'd,
Whom neither arms, nor toilsome march had tir'd,
Projected now, and gasping on the ground,
Unweildly burthens to themselves are found;
While inward fires, by slow degrees, exhaust
Their vital springs, and manly vigour waste.
The steed, late fierce, now scorns his proffer'd meat,
And faulters in his once imperious gait;
His former victories are all contemn'd,
With martial glory now no more enflam'd,
His rich caparisons no more adorn,
But as a loath'd, inglorious load are worn.