Enrag'd, and wildly fputtering, from the shore
A ftone, immenfe of fize, the warrior bore,
A load for labouring earth, whose bulk to raise,
Afks ten degenerate Mice of modern days.
Full on the leg arrives the crushing wound :
The Frog, fupportlefs, writhes upon the ground.
Thus flufh'd, the victor wars with matchlefs force, Till loud Craugafides arrefts his course.
Hoarse croaking threats precede! with fatal speed
Deep through the belly ran the pointed reed,
Then, ftrongly tugg'd, return'd imbrued with gore,
And on the pile his reeking entrails bore.
The lame Sitophagus, opprefs'd with pain,
Creeps from the defperate dangers of the plain;
And where the ditches rifing weeds supply
To spread their lowly shades beneath the sky,
There lurks the filent Mouse reliev'd from heat,
And, fafe embower'd, avoids the chance of fate.
But here Troxartas, Phyfignathus there,
Whirl the dire furies of the pointed spear;
But where the foot around its ankle plies,
Troxartas wounds, and Phyfignathus flies,
Halts to the pool, a safe retreat to find,
And trails a dangling length of leg behind.
The Mouse ftill urges, ftill the Frog retires,
And half in anguish of the flight expires.
Then pious ardour young Preffæus brings
Betwixt the fortunes of contending kings:
Lank harmless Frog! with forces hardly grown,
He darts the reed in combat not his own,
Which, faintly tinkling on Troxartas' shield,
Hangs at the point, and drops upon the field.
Now nobly towering o'er the reft appears
A gallant prince that far transcends his years,
Pride of his fire, and glory of his house,
And more a Mars in combat than a Moufe:
His action bold, robust his ample frame,
And Meridarpax his refounding name.
The warrior, fingled from the fighting croud,
Boafts the dire honours of his arms aloud;
Then strutting near the lake, with looks elate,
To all its nations threats approaching fate.
And fuch his ftrength, the filver lakes around
Might roll their waters o'er unpeopled ground.
But powerful Jove, who fhews no less his grace
To Frogs that perish, than to human race,
Felt foft compaffion rifing in his foul,
And fhook his facred head, that shook the pole.
Then thus to all the gazing powers began
The fire of Gods, and Frogs, and Mice, and Man: What feas of blood I view! what worlds of flain!
An Iliad rifing from a day's campaign;
How fierce his javelin o'er the trembling lakes
The black-furr'd hero Meridarpax shakes!
Unless fome favouring Deity defcend,
Soon will the Frogs loquacious empire end.
Let dreadful Pallas wing'd with pity fly,
And make her ægis blaze before his
While Mars refulgent on his rattling car,
Arrests his raging rival of the war.
He ceas'd, reclining with attentive head,
When thus the glorious God of combats faid :
Nor Pallas, Jove! though Pallas take the field,
With all the terrors of her hiffing fhield;
Nor Mars himself, though Mars in armour bright
Afcend his car, and wheel amidst the fight;
Not these can drive the desperate Mouse afar,
Or change the fortunes of the bleeding war.
Let all go forth, all heaven in arms arise,
Or launch thy own red thunder from the skies,
Such ardent bolts as flew that wondrous day,
When heaps of Titans mix'd with mountains lay;
When all the giant-race enormous fell,
And huge Enceladus was hurl'd to hell.
'Twas thus th' armipotent advis'd the Gods, When from his throne the cloud-compeller nods, Deep-lengthening thunders run from pole to pole, Olympus trembles as the thunders roll.
Then fwift he whirls the brandish'd bolt around,
And headlong darts it at the distant ground;
The bolt discharg'd inwrap'd with lightning flies,
And rends its flaming paffage through the skies:
Then earth's inhabitants, the nibblers, fhake,
And Frogs, the dwellers in the waters, quake.
Yet ftill the Mice advance their dread defign,
And the laft danger threats the croaking line,
Till Jove, that inly mourn'd the lofs they bore,
With ftrange affiftants fill'd the frighted shore.
Pour'd from the neighbouring strand,deform'd to view, They march, a fudden unexpected crew!
Strong fuits of armour round their bodies close,
Which, like thick anvils, blunt the force of blows;
In wheeling marches torn oblique they go;
With harpy claws their limbs divide below;
Fell fheers the paffage to their mouth command;
From out the flesh their bones by nature stand;
Broad spread their backs, their shining fhoulders rife ;
Unnumber'd joints diftort their lengthen'd thighs;
With nervous cords their hands are firmly brac'd ;
Their round black eye-balls in their bosom plac'd;
On eight long feet the wondrous warriors tread ;
And either end alike fupplies a head.
Thefe, mortal wits to call the Crabs agree,
The Gods have other names for things than we.
Now where the jointures from their loins depend,
The heroes tail with fevering grafps they rend.
Here, short of feet, depriv'd the power to fly,
There, without hands, upon the field they lie.
Wrench'd from their holds, and scatter'd all around,
The bended lances heap the cumber'd ground.
Helpless amazement, fear pursuing fear,
And mad confufion, through their hoft appear:
O'er the wild waste with headlong flight they go,
conceal'd in vaulted holes below.
But down Olympus to the western seas
Far-fhooting Phoebus drove with fainter rays;
And a whole war (fo Jove ordain'd) begun,
Was fought, and ceas'd, in one revolving fun.
o praife, yet ftill with due refpect to praise,
A bard triumphant in immortal bays,
The learn'd to fhow, the fenfible commend,
Yet ftill preserve the province of the friend,
What life, what vigour, muft the lines require ?
What mufic tune them? what affection fire?
O might thy genius in my bofom fhine!
Thou should'ft not fail of numbers worthy thine,
The brightest ancients might at once agree
To fing within my lays, and fing of thee.
Horace himself would own thou dost excel
In candid arts to play the critic well.
Ovid himself might wish to fing the dame
Whom Windfor Foreft fees a gliding stream,
On filver feet, with annual ofier crown'd,
She runs for ever through poetic ground.
How flame the glories of Belinda's hair,
Made by thy Muse the envy of the Fair!
Lefs fhone the treffes Ægypt's princess wore,
Which sweet Callimachus fo fung before.
Here courtly treffes fet the world at odds,
Belles war with Beaux, and whims defcend for Gods.
The new machines, in names of ridicule,
Mock the grave phrenzy of the-chemic fool.
But know, ye Fair, a point conceal'd with art,
The Sylphs and Gnomes are but a woman's heart :
|