Classic Poem

With that a thundring noise seem'd shake the skie,
 As when with iron wheels through stonie plain
A thousand chariots to the battell flie;
Or when with boistrous rage the swelling main,
 Puft up with mighty windes, does hoarsly roar;
 And beating with his waves the trembling shore,
His sandie girdle scorns, and breaks earths ramperd doore.

And straight an Angel full of heav'nly might,
(Three severall crowns circled his royall head)
From Northern coast heaving his blazing light,
Through all the earth his glorious beams dispread,
 And open laies the Beasts and Dragons shame:
 For to this end th' Almighty did him frame,
And therefore from supplanting gave his ominous name.

A silver trumpet oft he loudly blew,
Frighting the guiltie earth with thundring knell;
And oft proclaim'd, as through the world he flew,
Babel , great Babel lies as low as hell:
 Let every Angel loud his trumpet sound,
 Her heav'n-exalted towers in dust are drown'd:
Babel , proud Babel's fall'n, and lies as low as ground.

The broken heav'ns dispart with fearfull noise,
And from the breach out shoots a suddain light;
Straight shrilling trumpets with loud sounding voice
Give echoing summons to new bloudy fight:
 Well knew the Dragon that all-quelling blast,
 And soon perceiv'd that day must be his last;
Which strook his frighted heart, and all his troops aghast.

Yet full of malice and of stubborn pride,
Though oft had strove, and had been foild as oft,
Boldly his death and certain fate defi'd:
And mounted on his flaggie sails aloft,
 With boundlesse spite he long'd to try again
 A second losse, and new death; glad and fain
To shew his pois'nous hate, though ever shew'd in vain.

So up he rose upon his stretched sails,
Fearlesse expecting his approaching death:
So up he rose, that th' ayer starts, and fails,
And over-pressed sinks his load beneath:
 So up he rose, as does a thunder-cloud,
 Which all the earth with shadows black does shroud:
So up he rose, and through the weary ayer row'd.

Now his Almighty foe farre off he spies;
Whose Sun-like arms daz'd the eclipsed day,
Confounding with their beams lesse-glitt'ring skies,
Firing the aire with more than heav'nly ray;
 Like thousand Sunnes in one: such is their light;
 A subject onely for immortall sprite,
Which never can be seen, but by immortall sight.

His threatning eyes shine like that dreadfull flame,
With which the Thunderer arms his angry hand:
Himself had fairly wrote his wondrous name,
Which neither earth nor heav'n could understand:
 A hundred crowns, like towers, beset around
 His conqu'ring head: well may they there abound,
When all his limbes and troops with gold are richly crown'd.

His armour all was dy'd in purple blood;
(In purple bloud of thousand rebell Kings)
In vain their stubborn powers his arm withstood:
Their proud necks chain'd he now in triumph brings,
 And breaks their spears, and cracks their traitour swords
 Upon whose arms and thigh, in golden words
Was fairly writ, The King of Kings, and L ORD of Lords .

His snow-white steed was born of heav'nly kinde,
Begot by Boreas on the Thracian hills;
More strong and speedy than his parent Winde:
And (which his foes with fear and horrour fills)
 Out from his mouth a two-edg'd sword he darts;
 Whose sharpest steel the bone and marrow parts,
And with his keenest point unbreasts the naked hearts.

The Dragon, wounded with this flaming brand,
They take, and in strong bonds and fetters tie:
Short was the fight, nor could he long withstand
Him, whose appearance is his victorie.
 So now he's bound in adamantine chain;
 He storms, he roars, he yells for high disdain:
His net is broke, the fowl go free, the fowler ta'en.