--Long ranks in vain their shining blades extend,
480 To Demon-Gods their knees unhallow'd bend,
Wheel in wide circle, form in hollow square,
And now they front, and now they fly the war,
Pierce the deaf tempest with lamenting cries,
Press their parch'd lips, and close their blood-shot eyes.
485 --GNOMES! o'er the waste YOU led your myriad powers,
Climb'd on the whirls, and aim'd the flinty showers!--
Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge,
Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge;
Wave over wave the driving desert swims,
490 Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs;
Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,
Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush,--
Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,
And one great earthy Ocean covers all!--
495 Then ceased the storm,--NIGHT bow'd his Ethiop brow
To earth, and listen'd to the groans below,--
Grim HORROR shook,--awhile the living hill
Heaved with convulsive throes,--and all was still!


[_And stalking turrets_. l. 478. "At one o'clock we alighted among some
acacia trees at Waadi el Halboub, having gone twenty-one miles. We were
here at once surprised and terrified by a sight surely one of the most
magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from W. to
N.W. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different
distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on
with a majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were coming in a
very few minutes to overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did