Classic Poem

Thus vow'd the Caliph, and thus felly rag'd,
Eftsoons to wagen war he did provide;
A thousand kings are in his pay engag'd,
Whose thousand hosts before his city bide,
Imperial Memphis, Egypt's sov'reign pride:
The tawny Indian from the farthest east,
Where Phaebus rises from th' empurpled tide,
The Mauritanian from the steepy west,
Where in th' Atlantic wave his burning car is kest.