XVI.

And now the isthmus boasts its battery too; At shortest range ’tis thundering ’gainst the wall. Saint John protect thy bastion, or ’twill rue; Sebastian, guard thy castle, or ’twill fall! And lo, where shells ascending vertical, Like iron disc by surest player cast, Unerring light the townsmen to appal, And, scattering hundred deaths, with ruin blast The region doomed where’er that tempest dire hath past.