THEIR great fortress then did they found, | |
| And cast till they gat sure ground. | |
| All fell to work, both man and child, | |
| Some howkit clay, some burnt the tyld. | |
| Nimrod, that curious champion, | 5 |
| Deviser was of that dungeon. | |
| Nathing they spared their labors, | |
| Like busy bees upon the flowers, | |
| Or emmets travelling into June; | |
| Some under wrocht, and some aboon, | 10 |
| With strang ingenious masonry, | |
| Upward their wark did fortify; | |
| The land about was fair and plain, | |
| And it rase like ane heich montane. | |
| Those fulish people did intend, | 15 |
| That till the heaven it should ascend; | |
| Sae great ane strength was never seen | |
| Into the warld with men’s een. | |
| The wallis of that wark they made, | |
| Twa and fifty fathom braid: | 20 |
| Ane fathom then, as some men says, | |
| Micht been twa fathom in our days; | |
| Ane man was then of mair stature | |
| Nor twa be now, of this be sure. | |
| |
| The translator of Orosius | 25 |
| Intil his chronicle writes thus; | |
| That when the sun is at the hicht, | |
| At noon, when it doth shine maist bricht, | |
| The shadow of that hideous strength | |
| Sax mile and mair it is of length: | 30 |
| Thus may ye judge into your thocht, | |
| Gif Babylon be heich or nocht. | |
| |
| Then the great God omnipotent, | |
| To whom all things been present, | |
| He seeand the ambition, | 35 |
| And the prideful presumption, | |
| How thir proud people did pretend, | |
| Up through the heavens till ascend, | |
| Sic languages on them he laid, | |
| That nane wist what ane other said; | 40 |
| Where was but ane language afore, | |
| God send them languages three score; | |
| Afore that time all spak Hebrew, | |
| Then some began for to speak Grew, | |
| Some Dutch, some language Saracen, | 45 |
| And some began to speak Latin. | |
| The maister men gan to ga wild, | |
| Cryand for trees, they brocht them tyld. | |
| Some said, Bring mortar here at ance, | |
| Then brocht they to them stocks and stanes; | 50 |
| And Nimrod, their great champion, | |
| Ran ragand like ane wild lion, | |
| Menacing them with words rude, | |
| But never ane word they understood. | |
| |
