While thus he spoke, the tyrant’s mien express’d
    The troubled sea that roll’d within his breast. 
    By hopes, and doubts, and fears, his mind was torn,
    From thought to thought irregularly borne. 
    Thus the swift traveller, whose successful haste
    Has many a hill, and many a wood o’erpast,
    Trembling beholds new mountains touch the skies,
    And wider forests all around him rise. 
    His mind, unsettled by the sudden shock,
    At length recovering, to his friend be spoke. 
    “Thy counsels, Trollio, thy inventive soul,
    Have gain’d me half my power, secured the whole: 
    Display thy talents now; exert them all: 
    Rewards and honours wait without a call. 
    I dread Ernestus; and my cautious fear
    These tidings would conceal, while he can hear. 
    Myself, ev’n now, some fair pretence will frame,
    From this assembly to erase his name. 
    But haste, my friend, to council—­should we stay,
    Suspicion might comment on our delay!”

      This said, they enter’d—­at the monarch’s side
    Sate lordly Trollio, in accustom’d pride. 
    A mute attention still’d each listening man,
    ’Till, rising from his throne, the prince began.

      “Friends of my heart! to whom your monarch owes
    The brightest honours his kind fate bestows;
    My empire, unconfirm’d, imperfect still,
    Yet asks the aid of your auspicious skill. 
    Tho’ Sweden’s general voice consents to own
    Me the true master of her triple throne,
    Tho’ her disputed crown adorns my brow,
    And tributary millions round me bow;
    One bold, one stubborn province, yet defies
    My brandish’d arm, and to my threats replies;
    In face of all the realm denies my right,
    And challenges three kingdoms to the fight. 
    On Dalecarlia’s wide uncultured ground,
    With rugged hills, and mineral riches crown’d,
    A race, endued with native freedom, dwell;
    A race, that stood, when total Sweden fell. 
    Their strong and unremitting bands explore
    In earth’s dark caverns her metallic store,
    And, from laborious days extracting health,
    Rest satisfied, and ask no other wealth: 
    Rough and unyielding, like their native soil,
    The hardy sons of Nature and of Toil;
    Resistless vigour, resolute and warm,
    Strings every nerve, and braces every arm. 
    Foremost to vindicate the righteous cause,
    And from th’ oppressor guard their injur’d laws,
    Thro’ many a rolling century these have shone
    Th’ unfailing champions of the Swedish throne,
    And now with all my forces singly cope,
    Sweden’s last bulwark, and her choicest hope. 
    No trivial loss their courage will alarm,
    No threatening martial show their minds disarm,
    And bribes, those glittering, oft successful darts,
    Will find no entrance to their guarded hearts. 
    No—­fields must smoke, and blood in torrents flow,
    Ere all our force can master such a foe.”