of stern debate,
    Hamilcar mark’d, who at a distance stood,
    And eyed the friendly pair in hostile mood. 
    The royal Lydian, with distracted mien,
    Just as he ’scaped the vengeful flame, was seen
    And Syphax, who deplored an equal doom,
    Who paid with life his enmity of Rome;
    And Brennus, famed for sacrilegious spoil,
    That, overwhelm’d beneath the rocky pile,
    Atoned the carnage of his cruel hand,
    Join’d the long pageant of the martial band;
    Who march’d in foreign or barbarian guise
    From every realm and clime beneath the skies
    But different far in habit from the rest,
    One tribe with reverent awe my heart impress’d: 
    There he that entertain’d the grand design
    To build a temple to the Power Divine;
    With him, to whom the oracles of Heaven
    The task to raise the sacred pile had given: 
    The task he soon fulfill’d by Heaven assign’d,—­
    But let the nobler temple of the mind
    To ruin fall, by Love’s alluring sway
    Seduced from duty’s hallow’d path astray;
    Then he that on the flaming hill survived
    That sight no mortal else beheld, and lived—­
    The Eternal One, and heard, with awe profound,
    That awful voice that shakes the globe around;
    With him who check’d the sun in mid career,
    And stopp’d the burning wheels that mark the sphere,
    (As a well-managed steed his lord obeys,
    And at the straiten’d rein his course delays,)
    And still the flying war the tide of day
    Pursued, and show’d their bands in wild dismay.—­
    Victorious faith! to thee belongs the prize;
    In earth thy power is felt, and in the circling skies.—­
    The father next, who erst by Heaven’s command
    Forsook his home, and sought the promised land;
    The hallow’d scene of wide-redeeming grace: 
    And to the care of Heaven consign’d his race. 
    Then Jacob, cheated in his amorous vows,
    Who led in either hand a Syrian spouse;
    And youthful Joseph, famed for self-command,
    Was seen, conspicuous midst his kindred band. 
    Then stretching far my sight amid the train
    That hid, in countless crowds, the shaded plain,
    Good Hezekiah met my raptured sight,
    And Manoah’s son, a prey to female sleight;
    And he, whose eye foresaw the coming flood,
    With mighty Nimrod nigh, a man of blood;
    Whose pride the heaven-defying tower design’d,
    But sin the rising fabric undermined. 
    Great Maccabeus next my notice claim’d,
    By Love to Zion’s broken laws inflamed;
    Who rush’d to arms to save a sinking state,
    Scorning the menace of impending Fate
    Now satiate with the view, my languid sight
    Had fail’d, but soon perceived with new delight
    A train, like Heaven’s descending powers, appear,
    Whose radiance seem’d