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King Arthur

An Heroick Poem. In Twelve Books. By Richard Blackmore. To which is Annexed, An Index, Explaining the Names of Countrys, Citys, and Rivers, &c

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This shall, proud City, be thy dismal State,
The next to Sodom's and Gomorrah's Fate:
The Shepherd's shall not here their Tents extend,
Nor in their Folds their bleating Flocks defend.
The Savage Kind shall their old Haunts forsake,
And in this wilder Seat their Refuge take.
The Serpents in thy Cedar Rooms shall ly,
And o'er thy Heaps shall hisling Dragons fly.

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In thy gilt Rooms shall rest th'ill-boding Owl,
And Wolves within thy Palaces shall howl.
About thy Streets the ravening Bear shall stray,
And in thy Courts her unshap'd Whelps shall lay.
The Lyon shall possess thy Prince's Throne,
The next Apartment shall the Panther own.
The Tyger here his Residence shall make,
And there the Leopard shall his Lodging take.
The Bittern midst thy mosly Heaps shall cry,
Vultures and all the Pyrates of the Sky,
To this amazing Wilderness shall fly.
All Beasts and Birds of Prey shall hither come,
That beat the Air, or thro' the Forest roam:
A dire Convention, yet a milder Race
Than what before possest this Cruel place.