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.